by Israel Kipen
In the light of these realities, the need arose to face up to uncomfortable truths in relation to Zionist philosophy and adapt to them. It was at the 27th Zionist Congress held in Israel in 1972 that the major philosophical and ideological adjustment of theoretical Zionism was promulgated and formalised in what became known as the “Jerusalem Program”. The essence of the Program was contained in the proclamation affirming “the centrality of Israel in Jewish life”. The Program thereby legitimised the status quo within the Jewish world, unpalatable as this must have been to Herzlian theoreticians, and, of necessity, endorsed the principle Ahad Ha’am had enunciated long before.
Following the establishment of the State, voices throughout the Jewish world were heard arguing that there was no further need of a Zionist movement. This was an opportunistic attitude that could not be taken seriously. Zionism being a living ideology attuned to a continually evolving process, it affirms its very vitality by its readiness and ability to adjust to the needs of the time. Were it unable to do so, it would ossify and become irrelevant. Truth is that the Zionist movement continues to be relevant and has every reason to take pride in its attainments, notwithstanding the pernicious 1975 United Nations Resolution, pushed through by the Arab bloc, equating Zionism with racism. One of the most recent manifestations of Zionist commitment and vitality was in the evacuation of the Falashas from Ethiopia to Israel at a time when hunger and disease in that country was decimating thousands of people. The whole operation was a further confirmation of the centrality of Israel in Jewish life, for, needless to say, without the State, the rescue of these black Jews could not have happened. It also confirmed the ongoing commitment to the Zionist view of Jewish solidarity in times of need, wherever and whenever such need arises.
I am not prepared to anticipate the future role of Zionism in Jewish history. I would hope that the world at large will not regress to such a stage where the original Herzlian assumption of ingathering will become an urgent necessity.
14
Victorian Zionist Organization
On my arrival to Melbourne, I became involved with the Victorian Zionist Organization which was by nature of General Zionist orientation. Its name predates its political affiliation. The Victorian Zionist Organization was the original Zionist body in Melbourne and was, in its early days, apolitical in any party sense. Its Minutes Book, beginning in 1937, shows Dr Leon Jona to have been its President and Morris Cohen its Honorary Secretary. My first participation at committee level was on April 1, 1947. By that time, Joseph Solvey was President. Both his intellect and his political outlook appealed to me, and we were drawn into a partnership in fruitful communal endeavour over and above our personal friendship. Other personalities who were then, or who, in the ensuing ‘fifties, became, involved with the Victorian Zionist Orgnization were Dr Fred Benfey and Dr Ernest Krauss, Samuel Wynn, Julian Mercer, Nathan Jacobson and Robert Zablud. The Victorian Zionist Organization was then a major force in the Zionist movement. It had an office at 77 Bourke Street and employed a full-time secretary. It would, at intervals, invite guest speakers from interstate, and both these occasions and other public functions drew sizeable audiences, such gatherings being important cultural and social events in the community.
The strength of the Victorian Zionist Organization both in Melbourne and federally was in great part attributable to the personalities who led it. The early history of Melbourne Zionism is very much identified with such General Zionist figures as Alec Masel, Dr Aaron Patkin, Benzion Patkin, S. Wertheim, Dr Leon Jona, Samuel Wynn, Dr Machover. The same may be said of Sydney Zionism, while the Australian picture as a whole was typical of Zionism the world over, General Zionism having at all times been most central in the mainstream of Diaspora Zionism. Already as far back as the very first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897, the overwhelming majority of delegates were of the middle class. This has remained a constant ever since. In Melbourne, with the singular exception of Arnold Bloch who led the State Zionist Council from 1960 to 1966, all Presidents well into the 1970s were General Zionists. Similarly, national leaders of the Zionist Federation up to 1983 have been of the same ideological mould. While Jews holding more polarised doctrinal positions along the Zionist spectrum have formed themselves into clearly-defined organisational groups entailing the active commitments and duties of membership, the majority of Jews in the Australian community, as elsewhere – tradesmen, shopkeepers, businessmen, manufacturers, and others – have identified with this General Zionist stream of Zionism; but because they represent the liberal and pragmatic majority, they have been less inclined to be paying members within any organisational framework. Probably the best way to characterise these large numbers of Jews is to see them less as Party-minded General Zionists than as Zionists in General.
As with other parties, General Zionists, too, were subject to internal nuances. In pre-War Poland where the largest Jewish community capable of internal Jewish activity lived, the General Zionists were in the majority. These were, in turn, made up of two wings: General Zionists A and General Zionists B. The A group, corresponding to the small-‘L’ liberal definition and led by Itzhak Greenbaum and Dr Moshe Kleinbaum (later Moshe Sneh), dominated the northern General Zionists centred around Warsaw. The B group, with its hold upon the south, centred around Cracow, and led by Dr Yehoshua Thon, was more conservative. This distinction persisted into the post-war period. In the United States, for instance, Hadassah, the large women’s organisation, led for many years by Rose Halperin, followed the inclinations of the A group, represented in the States by Dr Israel Goldstein. The Zionist organization of America, on the other hand, was philosophically closer to the B group, whose leaders were Abba Hillel Silver and Dr Emanuel Newman. In the ‘fifties and ‘sixties, the intensity of this internal General Zionist cleavage led to the formation of two parallel General Zionist world federations: the World Confederation of General Zionists led by Dr Golstein, with Hadassah and the British General Zionists as its mainstay, and the World Union of General Zionists, led by the Zionist Organization of America. This polarisation had as much to do with issues of personalities as with philosophical differences. In practical political post-State Zionist realities, the role of the Goldstein-Halperin group was decisive in the domination of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency by the Israel Labor Mapai Party with whom they collaborated on many aspects of policy. This situation prevails even now in some form, even though its relevance in the ‘eighties is of dubious validity and consequence.
The issue of differing political ideologies within the overall framework of the Zionist movement, understandable as it was in pre-State days, became very contentious from the ‘fifties onwards. As already stated elsewhere, there were some who thought that the Zionist movement had lost its raison d’etre altogether with the establishment of the Jewish State. Therefore, to have distinctive political parties in the Diaspora continue as the organised backbone of the movement seemed to some absurd, for any political decisions taken by the State could belong only to the State and to its citizens. Nonetheless, despite this self-evident truth, such parties outside of Israel persist to this day. The reason for this lies in the unchanged modus operandi of Zionist Congresses which continue to base their representation on old pre-State formulae and also relate to the voting strengths of the parties in Israeli general elections. To judge from the current state of the Zionist parties in the Diaspora, a new formula for Diaspora communal representation at the Zionist Congresses will need to be devised. The task of depoliticising an essentially political movement is a tall order which will tax the abilities of those charged to devise a new formula as also of the leaders at the time who will have to adhere to it.
The Victorian Zionist Organization which identified itself with, and became an affiliate of, the World Union of General Zionists at one time found itself in such a state of ambivalence. On the one hand, the independent State engaged in a desperate bid to cement its shaky security and economic existence. On the other hand, the Un
ited Israel Appeal acted as the independent financial arm of world Jewry to help the State in the social tasks of immigrant absorption and other needs. Thus the actual working agenda for Zionist organizations was basically limited to education, youth work, promotion of aliya and public relations. Most of these tasks would have been most effective if approached in a unified manner than in a splintered organisational way. As far as youth was concerned, General Zionists in Australia (and elsewhere) were remiss in not creating a youth movement as other more doctrinal parties had done. Admittedly, their pragmatism lacked the more radical slogans of the Left and the Right or of the religious bodies to attract the attention of youth – a problem everywhere. But the creation of such a youth movement could have been achieved, and General Zionists can only blame themselves for having forfeited the opportunity. With regard to public relations and education, the record is better, while, in relation to aliya, this has usually been most closely linked with the youth movements.
When Joseph Solvey assumed the Presidency of the State Zionist Council around 1950, I took over the Presidency of the Victorian Zionist Organization from him. By that time, however, altered circumstances precluded the Victorian Zionist Organization from continuing the role it had played in the 1940s. The emphasis had shifted from theoretical issues to very urgent and practical ones. It was the decade of the ingathering, of desperate need for material help. The centre of gravity of Zionist activity shifted from theory to money-raising appeals and other forms of aid. These came under the umbrella of the State Zionist Council and were directed at the entire community rather than being organised on a parochial party basis. As a consequence, the accent shifted away more enduringly from these more esoteric and narrow parties in favour of the larger framework represented by the predominantly General Zionist-oriented State Zionist Council.
The implication of all this was that my years in the Presidency of the Victorian Zionist Organization were played out against a different background from that of my predecessors and were attended by different potentialities. That does not mean that the VZO went out of business. Far from it. It remained politically very cohesive and vibrant; it served as a caucus where State Zionist Council policies were discussed and assessed before they came to the Council table; it dealt with issues relevant also to the Zionist Federation, the United Israel Appeal, and to other groups reliant upon it. In addition, there were issues of a local nature in which the VZO adopted attitudes that were not necessarily the same as other affiliates of the State Zionist Council. One of these, for example, related to Mount Scopus College. While the VZO was of one mind with the Mizrachi movement regarding Zionism in general, their respective views about Mount Scopus College differed. On such issues, the SZC became a forum for argument and political contest rather than of unified action. The future of the Bialik afternoon and Sunday School was another such issue. Matters on the agendae of the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry were often those where no unanimity could be reached within the Zionist movement. In addition, the VZO remained involved in concerns such as the organisational issues of the General Zionists on a global scale, World Zionist Congress elections, and delegate allocations, among others.
Where the VZO did decline in the ‘fifties was in its public profile. During Israel’s War of Liberation from May to December 1948, Joe Solvey, Julian Mercer and I were conducting weekly information and discussion evenings at the Kadimah Hall, where we commented on the political events of the day. In the ‘fifties, however, people went instead to listen to emissaries who spoke on behalf of the State. To that extent, the outward orientation of the VZO inevitably shrank and changed. At the end of my term, I, too, like my predecessor Joseph Solvey, took over the Presidency of the State Zionist Council. In turn, I handed the Presidency of the VZO to Julian Mercer.
Mercer, who was ten years older than I, had pre-War personal connections with the leadership of the world Zionist movement. He was intellectually and, in terms of Zionist philosophy, a very suitable leader of the General Zionists. He enjoyed high international regard and was elected member of both the world executive of the General Zionists and of the World Zionist Organization. However, in relation to activities on the local Victorian scene in the ‘sixties, time was even more against him than it had been against me in the preceding decade. The political ineffectuality of Zionist parties which set in after 1948 continued to worsen to the point of debilitation. Repeated attempts to draw the next generation into the Zionist movement failed, for reasons that were not difficult to discern. These young people, mostly local-born and educated, did not carry with them the same political sensitivity ingrained in the older generation and brought from Europe at a time when political issues mattered very greatly and were vigorously and tenaciously fought over. Whatever interest the young did have in Zionism was reflected more in their wish to find some practical outlet for their involvement than in theoretical concerns. Thus, some, for instance, became involved in the United Israel Appeal or in work for schools, but issues of ideology and inter-party politics they left to the older guard.
Julian Mercer passed away in 1975. His widow, Zosia Mercer, a successful President of Victorian WIZO, was in 1984 to become President of the State Zionist Council, the first woman to occupy this position.
The man who succeeded Julian Mercer to the Victorian Zionist Organization Presidency was Robert Zablud. He had arrived in Australia from Brest Litovsk before the war, having shared both a birthplace and a friendship with Menachem Begin. A pre-War law graduate from Warsaw, he had lived in Albury ten years before moving to Melbourne where, like Julian Mercer, he repeated his law studies. This accounts for the delay in his communal involvement after arrival, but once he entered into communal service, he rose through the ranks to become successively President of the Victorian Zionist Organization, the State Zionist Council and the Zionist Federation of Australia and New Zealand. His wife, Ann, attained acclaim in her own right, having been President, first of Victorian WIZO and then of the national body. Robert Zablud maintained excellent relations with the international General Zionist leadership, serving as Australian representative on its world executive and at its congresses. He was also to become President of the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies.
The political heir in Israel to pre-State General Zionism was the Liberal Party. Its leaders at the time of the State’s establishment were, among others, Peretz Berenstein, Dr E. Rimalt and Joseph Sapir. Their political fortunes at the Knesset elections in the first two decades of statehood varied considerably, considering that the Labor Party would poll some 40% of the vote. The proliferation of political parties and splinter groups in Israel, due to the country’s electoral system of proportional representation, rendered successive Israeli governments vulnerable.
It was this vulnerability which persuaded the major political actors in Israeli politics to join forces to create a system closer to the British system of government and opposition. To achieve that end, the parties on the left – with the exclusion of the Communists – joined forces, for electoral purposes, into the Ma’arach bloc. Those on the right, namely Herut and the Liberal Party created the Likud led by Menachem Begin, which, in 1977, wrested power from Labor after 29 years of continuous government. To facilitate the creation of Likud, the two parties entered into an electoral pact which favoured the Liberals in the proportional numbers of candidates on the list of potential deputies it could field in the Knesset. Begin knew that Herut would not attain government in its own right. By means of acumen, expediency and generosity towards his Liberal partners, he made change in Israeli politics possible. As a consequence, the Knesset elections of 1977 were a watershed in Israeli politics. The return of the Likud at the subsequent elections and again in 1983, when Begin had departed from the scene, not only consolidated the realignment of political forces, but also placed the Liberal partners of the Likud coalition in a dilemma. Prior to the formation of the Likud, Herut would poll more votes than the Liberals. Begin’s persona
l charisma had attracted a strong following among the ever-increasing number of Sephardi voters. Thus the number of Liberal deputies in the Knesset was considered by Herut to be disproportionate to the Liberal vote and inflated at its own expense. In internal matters, the coalition was not tested. The views of Herut and the Liberals were in harmony. In external affairs, however, there were clear differences which continued to persist and were aggravated by certain Herut personalities.
As long as Simcha Erlich, who had led the Liberals into the coalition, was alive and Begin was in command, the coalition worked well. But after Erlich’s sudden death and the subsequent departure of Menachem Begin from the political scene, new pressures began to surface within the Likud, aimed at amalgamating the two parties into a single entity. Both the initiative and the pressure came from Herut and were already evident in the composition of the 1983 election candidate lists where the Liberal share was reduced. The pressure exerted subsequently led to a three-faction split in the Liberal party. One faction fully supported the merger; another fully resisted it; and the third, led by Liberal leader and Minister of Finance Modai, adopted a wait-and-see position.