2 January 16, 1976

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

Sad Chapter in Zionist History Recorded in Re-Emergence
of Morris S. Lazaron . . . One-Time Zionist Who Be-
came An Antagonist in a Role of Pronouncing `Khatosi'

By Philip
Slomovitz

The Lazaron Chapter in Zionist History: Loyalties and Defections

"Several years ago, I partici- leadership he accused of playing selfish poli- Real Issue," a reprint of an article in a na-
tional magazine which had been reprinted as
pated in an American Jewish Com- tics. Here are the accusations:
mittee Task Force on the Future of the
"The Zionist leaders seemed to be a pamphlet for wide distribution. That's
American Jewish Community. At one
less than completely frank. They talked where he asserts his opposition to secular
of the sessions, I was impressed by the
about the democratization of Jewish life nationalism. His ideology was — perhaps re-
learned comments of one of the partic-
and yet the party line and discipline mains — one of a cultural-religious historic
. ipating ladies. Upon inquiry, I
were in the hands of a few who exercised role for Jewry. To a small degree it was
learned that she was the daughter of
an autocratic authority which no one Ahad Ha-Amism, except that Ahad Ha-Am
was a secular Jew deeply identified with
Rabbi Lazaron. I was surprised to
could challenge.
learn that he was in good health and
"During the controversy between Jewish historicity.
But Zionism also is part of the rk,_
in Florida.
the American Jewish Committee and
"This inquiry 'triggered a corre-
the Zionist Organization of America, I of the Jew, and on that score the antagonism
spondence during the course of which
pleaded for an honorable compromise against Zionism that was pursued by Rabbi
I asked Rabbi Lazaron to write an ar-
which would bring unity instead of divi- Lazaron was destructive. He could have
ticle indicating how his views on Zion-
sion in American Jewish life. To no helped at a time when his association with
the Council for Judaism hindered. On this
ism and Israel had changed since
avail.
1948, if indeed they had. Under sepa-
"Finally and reluctantly, I came to score it is worth recalling the role of another
rate cover, I am sending you a copy of
the conclusion that the Zionists were us- eminent Jew, Isaac Deutscher. He was the
our journal, Conservative Judaism, in
ing Jewish needs to achieve their politi- eminent ideological interpreter of CommunT
which this article appeared."
cal goals. If one was not with the Zion- ism -who later exposed the fallacies of Com-
ists, ipso facto, one was against them. munists.
Morris S. Lazaron's recollections,
He was an Ilui, a talmudical genius, at
When these convictions crystallized
"Looking Back," in Conservative Judaism,
after a few years, I withdrew from the 13, but became an agnostic and was an anti
Winter 1973 issue, provided a description of
Zionist. Was it his wife who, publishing his
organization.
the many early services to the Zionist move-
"In 1948, vast tides of emotion works posthumously, referred to him as the
ment and to the Zionist Organization of
moved the multitudes of our people. un-Jewish Jew?
America he had rendered. He referred for
In 1956 Deutscher wrote a report on his
"Our brothers are being killed and they
example, to several facts, among them:
have nowhere to go!" What Jew with visit to Israel. He said he was still a non-
"In the twenties and thirties, I
any feeling for the brotherhood of Jews Zionist but was greatly impressed with Jew-
toured the major cities of the United
ish accomplishments in Israel. Then he ad-
could resist?
States in behalf of the Keren Hayesod
"Major voices like that of Judah L. mitted: had he and his fellow anti-Zionists
and the Palestine Appeal. In hearings
Magnes, and minor voices like my own, supported the Zionist movement perhaps an-
before the Joint Senate-House Foreign
were rejected in the aftermath of the other million Jews might have been rescued
Relations Committee, I was, with Ste-
Hitler persecutions. We believed in the from Nazism.
phen Wise, one of the very few Reform
Is the present position of Dr. Lazaron a
form of atonement? Many a great man, all of
us, err at times. Is what he states now a
Prophecy of Amos
Khatosi, a confessional of having sinned?
Chapter 8
Does he now say al het — the recitation of
the sin that merits absolution?
up
raise
I
nun that day will
He was a welcome guest to Hoffberger,
The tabernacle of David that is
he is welcome to the ranks of the defenders
fallen,
of Zion even at this late date when Dr. Laza-
And close up the breaches thereof,
ron, soon to be a nonagenarian, takes up the
And I will raise u.p his ruins,
cudgels again for a movement so vitally af-
And I will build it as in the days of
fected by hatred, so urgently in need of de-.
old;
fense and support.
And the treader of_grapes him that
Morris S. Lazaron's involvement in the
soweth seed ;
Council for Judaism was not an isolated
And the mountains shall drop sweet
case.
wine,
Detroit Temple Beth El's Rabbi Leo M.
And all the hills shall melt.
Franklin affiliated with the anti-Zionist
1 ' And I will turn the captivity of My
group, but he resigned and repudiated it.
people Israel,
5 07? '9:2 rn;c! -M t7rIP
A related sad experience involving a dis:•
And they shall build the waste cities,
,31
,p
Hay.;
0'`117
1#7
tinguished
American Jew also is worth re-
and inhabit them;
calling. Henry Hurwitz, founder of the Men-
And they shall plant vineyards, and
Pr - rIS 17 ,111 Er?"1; 11F;i1
orah Intercollegiate Association and editor
drink the wine thereof;
1t. / 171
15 ;r47
of one of the leading journals in this country,
They shall also make gardens, and
the now defunct Menorah Journal, had a not-
eat the fruit of them.
Ory?'"fti",47 crr,iutp is
able role in Zionism from the time he formed
will
plant
them
upon
their
I
15 And
t4'31
the Menorah students' movement at Harvard
land,
University in 1905. He, too, had a run-in with
And they shall no more be plucked up
47
7 7m ;-7?;
crY? 'rliN- ntlt, h17
Zionist leadership and the Menorah Journal
Out of their land which I have given
became a vehicle for antagonism to the
• :7707.3 7717-17 nrA4
them,
movement. Hurwitz sought this writer's
Saith the LORD thy God.
help, inviting special articles for his journal,
proposed creation of the bi-national in a battle against Zionist leadership, and
rabbis who testified in favor of our gov-
state, after the pattern of Switzerland. that call was rejected. He never deviated
ernment's acceptance of the Balfour
We foresaw the tragic problems, which from his enmity.
Declaration as a principle of its foreign
at the present, are still unsolved.
policy."
Differences of views did not affect such
"But any deviation from the Zionist Zionist leaders as Stephen S. Wise, Abba
This became a challenging matter. If El-
"I wrote the prayer for the restora-
solution to the tragic problem was con- Hillel Silver and Supreme Court Justice
mer Berger, one-time guiding genius of the
tion of Palestine which is in one of the
sidered treasonable, and proponents of Louis D. Brandeis. They, and others,
Council for Judaism, former Pontiac and
Friday evening services of the Union
any other solution were considered anti- cized and advocated changes in the di
Flint rabbi, has misrepresented the aims of
Prayer Book."
the anti-Zionist Council, is this Council's
Semites.
"This was my thinking in 1930.
of the Zionist organizational affairs. ut
"I was condemned and boycotted. they did not quit the movement. On the con-
current position to be treated differently? Is
"Moved by sympathy and yielding
But my position implied no lack of con.: trary, in the trying 1930s and 1940s they
the Elmer Berger organization now being to the persuasive spell of the phrase
cern or love for my brother Jews in their lent their energies and their means towards
quoted widely by Israel's enemies, function-
"the peoplehood of Israel," but without
agony. I was fearful for their safety and the fulfillment of the Zionist dream.
ing under the name American Jewish Alter- commitment to the political aims of
their future in Israel, and concerned
natives to Zionism, the group to be treated as Zionism, I joined the Zionist Organiza-
A League for Israel was formed by a
about the effect that a Zionist state in small group of American Zionist leaders,
the enemy?
tion of America.
Israel
would
have
upon
the
peace
of
the
Contact with Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, ex-
"I defined my conception of Jewish
including several former presidents of the
ecutive vice president of the Rabbinical As-
world." •
nationalism in an 'address from the pul-
Zionist Organization of America. None, how-
sembly, therefore, became imperative, and
pit: "The concept of Jewish Peoplehood,
The pity of this is that a brilliant Re- ever, abandoned Zionism as an ideal.
this note from Rabbi Kelman reintroduces
of Jewish nationality, has no political form Jewish scholar, a man who had gained
The new approach to Israel's needs by
the subject on the basis of Dr. Lazaron's ex-
implications. Its program may be politi- a place of honor in Jewish leadership should Dr. Lazaron appears as an indication that
planation of his role:
cal, but only insofar as existing world have deviated so much from practicality, the one-time impassioned advocate of the
"Your request for further informa-
conditions and the conduct of interna- from realism, without granting benefit of Zionist ideal emerges anew as a defender of
tion about Rabbi Lazaron is another
tional relations makes this necessary." doubt to inevitable emergence of blunders in Israel.
link in a most unusual chain of coincid-
"As I look back, I realize how naive
Whatever addenda there are to the La-
and social ranks.
ences which happen so often in what is
I was. I did not understand the realities political
zaron incident admonish his earlier critics to
Dr.
Lazaron's
evolutionary
status
vis-a-
really our very small Jewish world. I
of Jewish nationalism. Disillusionment
vis Zionism can be judged only by reading welcome the former comrade into revived re-
have often commented that the key to
came gradually."
much of what he has written, his letters to lationships. Perhaps the loyalties of old
understanding Jewish life is rnishpo-
the
New York Times, his special articles. friends are never totally lost.
Then
came
a
period
of
bitterness
result-
chology, to which your letter bears ad-
(Continued on Page 56)
is his essay. "Ijomeland or State: The
Typical
ing from his having been turned off by the
ditional evidence.
,
;
, 1 1.

Jerold C. (Chuck) Hoffberger could not
have anticipated that a casual courtesy to his
rabbi, expressed in his speech accepting the
presidency, of the Council of Jewish Federa-
tions and Welfare Funds, in Miami Beach,
Fla., Nov. 22, would be occasion to recon-
struct an interesting chapter in Zionist his-
tory in this country and means of correcting
a possible prejudice.
Hoffberger called attention to the pres-
ence at the dinner of "my rabbi, Dr. Morris
Lazaron of Baltimore." There was very scant
applause and one would imagine that the
vast audience of nearly 2,000 was aware of
Dr. Lazaron's critical attitudes toward Zion-
ism and Zionists at a session at which Zion-
ism was acclaimed the major Jewish ideal
just after the obscene action of the United
Nations.
Apparently it was a mere indifference
to an aside in a presidential acceptance'
speech. For the knowledgeable of American
Jewish historical occurrences in the past
four decades, the Hoffberger greeting to his
rabbi revived an interest in Jewish com-
munal conflicts and this writer undertook to
trace what appeared as a new development
in Jewish communal history — the presence
of Rabbi Lazaron at a national Jewish gath-
ering of nationwide interest.
Rabbi Lazaron had been an inspired
advocate of Zionism and in the 1920s and
1930s this writer heard his eloquence
in behalf of the Zionist Federation of Amer-
ica — as the movement was known before
the name change to Zionist Organization of
America. That's when this writer came to
know him.
There was an unfortunate rift and Dr.
Lazaron enrolled in the ranks of the Ameri-
can Council for Judaism. Because he was
rated as "an enemy of the movement" in the
years of his latter affiliation, the Hoffberger
affectionate reference to his rabbi induced
this writer to contact Rabbi Lazaron on the
question of his early devotions and subse-
quent negations. Rabbi Lazaron, now in
Palm Beach, Fla., responded:
"Thank you for your good letter.
Let me say at once that though I am
not a Zionist, since the state has been
established I have not said or written
anything to harm our brethren or Is-
rael. Israel's destruction would be one
of the great tragedies of history.
"Were I well I would so liked to
have met and talked with you for my
position has been mostly misunder-
stood. There are various degrees of
feeling in the Council which was
grievously misled by Elmer Berger,
who was forced to resign.
"You may be interested in our ar-
ticle appearing about a year ago in
Conservative Judaism, in the winter
edition 1973 . . . Mrs. Lazaron and I
contributed $1,000 to the Emergency
campaign at the time of the Yom Kip-
pur War."

-

'

,

CitZ12

.