7
Friday, November 4, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
David Ben-Gurion Portrayed as 'Prophet of Fire'
Biography is major in the
study of human events and
is indelible when treated
historically. Dan Kurzman,
already in the front ranks of
Israel's historians, attains
eminence as historian in his
"David Ben-Gurion:
Prophet of Fire" (Simon and
Schuster). If Thomas Car-
lyle's definition, "The his-
tory of the world is the his-
tory of great men" is to be
recalled, it is especially
applicable to the biography
of Israel's first prime minis-
ter which will surely be
treated as a history of Israel
and of Zionism as well.
Kurzman reappears on
the literary scene with his
"Ben-Gurion" as a worthy
followup to an earlier mag-
nificent accomplishment.
His "Genesis 1948" served
as a guide for students of the
events that led to Israel's
redemption. It was deser-
vedly a best seller in Zionist
literature for more than a
decade and many keep re-
verting to it and quoting
from it.
Kurzman has served as a
correspondent for the
Washington Post, Interna-
tional News Service in
Paris, for NBC in Jerusalem
DAVID BEN-GURION
and Cairo and for
McGraw-Hill in Tokyo. He
has written eight books.
The hero of the
Kurzman biography is
defined as a prophet and
in that role he must be
treated as sharing the
image not only of
Theodor Herzl but also of
one of his most avowed
antagonists, Vladimir
Jabotinsky. As one - who
was fired with determi-
nation to achieve the
Zionist aim, he certainly
emerges in the new work
as "prophet of fire."
Ben-Gurion was the con-
sistent, determined, dedi-
cated leader who inspired
similar loyalties to the
cause of Jewish national re-
demption, and it may well
be said about him, as
Kurzman proves, that he
fired the imagination of
those who labored with him
for a Zion rebuilt, who sur-
rounded him later in his
prime ministership and
some having followed him
into the Israeli ranks as the
creator of statehood.
The new Ben-Gurion
biography may well be
judged as the completest
compiled from direct con-
tacts not only with the sub-
ject of this biography but
also because hundreds of as-
sociates and intimates of
Ben-Gurion were utilized in
interviews for available in-
formation and historical de-
tails.
How does Kurzman jus-
tify calling Ben-Gurion, the
Socialist, the labor or-
ganizer, a Prophet in Israel?
Perhaps it is best explained
in the introductory defini-
tion:
"The life of David
Ben-Gurion is more than
the story of an extraordi-
nary man. It is the story
of a Biblical prophecy, an
eternal dream. It is the
story of Zionism and of
the Jewish people in the
last hundred years, of a
nation's rebirth and its
momentous consequ-
ences, which are re-
flected daily in the head-
lines.
"To fully understand
these headlines and the
passions behind them, the
fears, the fantasies, and the
frustrations, one must com-
prehend the character of the
man who presided over the
renaissance.
"Ben-Gurion was, in a
modern sense, Moses,
Joshua, Isaiah, a messiah
who felt he was destined to
create an exemplary Jewish
state ; a 'light unto the na-
tions' that would help to re-
deem all mankind."
It is as labor leader, as
the dominant personality
in the Poale Zion, the
Labor Zionist movement,
and in the ranks of His-
tadrut that Ben-Gurion
figures most promi-
nently.
Related, of course, is his
role in Zionist ranks, and
here his confrontations with
general Zionists is por-
DAN KURZMAN
trayed most vividly.
B-G was the labor leader,
the advocate of labor un-
ions, the ordinary man in
the ranks, and he was in
contrast with Chaim Weiz-
mann, the scientist who
mingled with the academi-
cians to start with and then
with grace with politicians.
Ben-Gurion was the Halutz,
the laborer. They clashed on
principles and when state-
hood was declared Weiz-
mann was the inevitable
choice for president of Is-
rael, a glory only in name. It
was the inability of Weiz-
mann to act with authority
in the presidency that irked
him.
The contrasting situa-
tions receive impressive
coverage in the B-G biog-
raphy and the reader learns
much about the two leaders,
as well as about nearly all
the Zionist personalities, in
the Kurzman story. That's
what makes it such an im-
portant chapter in Zionist
and Israeli history.
It is in depicting Ben-
Gurion's relationships with
his own labor Zionist as-
sociates, with those who
were in his Cabinet and in
Israeli leadership, that the
Kurzman story is especially
valuable. Golda Meir,
Moshe (Shertok) Sharett,
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Zalman
Shazar, the Katzenelsons,
scores of others of evidence
in Zionist records, emerge
in their glorious roles.
The 23-page bibliography
attests to the extensive re-
search by Kurzman in com-
piling so valuable a biog-
raphy.
As biography par excel-
lence, the Kurzman volume
will be a guide for many and
will merit more than one
reviewing comment. It is
history on a meritorious
scale.
A Warning from the History of Modern rAntisemitism'
By REV. FRANKLIN
LITTELL
National Institute
of the Holocaust
PHILADELPHIA —
What is anti-Semitism?
The word, as I try from
time to time to educate my
editor, is "antisemitism"
(small "a," no hyphen). My
authority for such spelling,
to which I turned after years
of error, might be Dr. James
Parkes. Dr. Parkes, an Ang-
lican churchman who lived
to an advanced age -- long
enough to receive a well-
deserved Munk Award from
the Canadian Council of
Christians and Jews, was
the outstanding scholar of
his generation on
Christian/Jewish relations.
But it was not the great
Dr. Parkes who educated
me: it was study of the his-
tory of the malady itself.
The inventor of the word
was Wilhelm "Marr, one of
the first to perceive hatred
of the Jews to be a political
weapon of great potential in
Christendom. The word he
invented was — correctly
capitalized in German,
which capitalizes general
nouns, but not capitalized in
English—Antisemitismus.
Marr represents, a little
over a century ago, a new
level of anti-Semitism:
the political, or modern,
use of hatred of the Jews
to achieve influence and
power. He organized his
League of Antisemites
(1879) as a political
weapon in Germany, in
the pursuit of political
goals.
A few years before that
the Romanovs and their ad-
visers had already disco-
vered, by political instinct,
that appealing to the anti-
Jewish instincts of the ig-
norant masses was a splen-
did diversionary tactic in
Russia. The masses, fed the
church's anti-Semitism for
centuries, could by the de-
liberate use of political
anti-Semitism be turned
away from attention to the
economic misery which
under a venal and witless
aristocracy was their lot.
By the time of the last of
the line, Nicholas, theoreti-
cians such as Konstantin-
Pobedonostsev had blended
the several strands of Rus-
sian anti-Semitism —
populist, churchly and polit-
ical — into a unified prog-
ram. It was Pobedonostsev,
chief constitutional adviser
to the Czar and president of
the Synod of the Russian
Orthodox Church, who an-
nounced the program for the
Jews: one-third will be
forced to convert, one-third
will emigrate and one-third
will be killed.
To this anti-Semitic prog-
ram the Russian Orthodox
Church, torn between love
of privilege and supersti-
tions associated with the
name of the monk Rasputin,
made no resistance.
No one can understand
anti-Semitism who limits
the discussion to modern,
political, deliberate defa-
mation of "the Jews." Still
less can it be understood by
reference only to deface-
ments and graffiti, or
marching rabble like the
Nazis at Skokie, Ill.
As a comprehensive
ideology of rejection,
theological anti-Semitism
was perfected by the gentile
church fathers. Its cor-
nerstone is the superseding
myth, with the New Testa-
ment superseding and
sometimes displacing the
Old Testament, with the
"New Israel" (the Christian
church) taking the place of
the "Old Israel" as the car-
rier of history.
Upon the bedrock of
theological anti-Semitism,
which is still preached and
taught in thousands of
Christian congregations
throughout Christendom, a
second level — cultural
anti-Semitism (Kulturan-
tisemitismus) — was laid.
Cultural anti-Semitism,
unrecognized and un-
examined, is rife even in
"the modern mind" which
has rejected organized relig-
ion and its teachings. To-
day, humanists and Mar-
xists are as prone to anti-
REV. LITTELL
Semitism as churchmen.
The Enlightenment and the
Emancipation, which
created a borderline situa-
tion for Jews, both intellec-
tually and politically, pro-
duced both a Voltaire and
an American Council for
Judaism — both of them
characteristic products of
Kulturantisemitismus.
Why did Marr invent
the term "antisemitism"
instead of stating what he
really meant: hatred of
Jews (Judenhass) or en-
mity to Jews (Juden-
feindschaft)? For one
reason: Antisemitismus
had an intellectual tone,
or pseudo-academic
sound, to it. Partly it was
political cunning: if he
had been blunt about it,
many potential converts
would have been turned
away at once.
Like the vehement
"anti-Zionist" today, Marr
realized that if he said what
he really meant — hostility
to Jewish survival — listen-
ers would be given an ample
and timely warning.
Partly it was to give
"tone" to hatred. By the
time of Wilhelm Marr, a
new factor had entered the
picture of anti-Semitism:
rudimentary anthropology,
with learned academicians
like Gobineau (1818-1982)
dividing mankind into
"races" and rating the
"races" according to their
levels of value.
Two generations before
the first "anthropologists,"
scholars in the great Ger-
man universities had di-
vided the world's languages
into cognate language
groups, including "Semitic"
languages and "Aryan, or
Indo-European" languages.
This was an interesting
theoretical leap, which still
shows itself in many uni-
versity catalogues.
an-
first
The
thropologists made
another theoretical leap,
even more precarious:
since there are "Aryan"
languages, they
reasoned, there must be
Aryans; since there are
"Semitic" languages,
there must be semites.
Theological and cultural
anti-Semitism thus found
itself reinforced by a
pseudo-scientific theory of
the races of mankind. Marr
was alert to give his politi-
cal anti-Semitism the be-
nediction of "science," as
well as the play upon ac-
cumulated superstitions
and anxieties of centuries of
Christendom. Nazi anti-
Semitism, too, was not sol-
ely a Christian product. It
also claimed the authority
of scientists, including some
Nobel Laureates.
The tragedy of liberal
churchmen who allow their
offices to be channels for
PLO propaganda is not that
they are themselves delib-
erate, conscious, malicious
anti-Semities. The tragedy
is that they are unaware of
why they fall so easily into
anti-Jewish positions. The
tragedy of liberal academics
— for instance the North-
western University faculty
that projects Butz, and the
SUNY-Stonybrook facility
that protects a Dube — is
not that they are them-
selves deliberate, conscious,
malicious anti-Semites. The
tragedy is that they are ig-
norant of the roots and the
history of anti-Semitism.
And they have not con-
templated with honesty the
contribution of the modern
university and its products
to the murder of millions of
Jews, in the Holocaust.
The Center for the Scien-
tific Study of Anti-
Semitism, founded a year
ago at Hebrew University,
is now well on its way.
Launched by a grant from
the Vidal Sassoon Founda-
tion, the needed work is
going forward to deal with
anti-Semitism in depth. As
a "think-tank," the center
will supply the materials
upon which a real attack on
the disease of anti-
Semitism can be made — No
longer simply dobbing out-
breaks with the mercuro-
chrome or superficial atten-
tion, but cutting to the core
of the disease.
Churchmen
and
academics have too long
viewed anti-Semitism as a
mild distemper, coddled the
"typhoid Marys" and ig-
nored its mortal dangers to
persons and to civilized soc-
iety. The center will help
to develop genuinely con-
scientious and scientific an-
swers to an ancient evil, in-
cluding an early warning
system on potentially
genocidal movements.