Take Issue with Misinterpretations of Ahad Ha’am’s Cultural Center

Schmarya Levin, the noted Zionist and writer, has taken issue with the references to Ahad Ha’am made by Dr. Judah L. Magnes in his recent statements and in the following statement to the “Jewish Daily Bulletin” refutes the implications placed on Ahad Ha’am by Dr. Magnes:

“There has been too much mention of late of the name of the great Jewish thinker, Ahad Ha’Am. All this ado would not be superfluous were it in connection with the teachings of the great Jewish philosopher which, since his death, have become more widely spread and more firmly rooted in certain Jewish intellectual circles-a phenomenon not infrequent with cultural leaders.

“To one’s deep regret, however, the name of Ahad Ha’Am is being put to political uses and very frequently in direct contradiction to the philosophy of the cultural leader who throughout his life, held himself aloof from politics, protesting when others sought to play politics in his name.

“The leader of the Zionist Revisionists, for example, finds a passage in the writings of Ahad Ha’Am, where he talks about a Jewish majority in Palestine and expresses the hope that the day will come when the Jewish spirit will find itself in a normal environment and will be enabled to fully develop its creative powers. On the strength of this passage, the leader of the Zionist Revisionists wishes to place the crown of Revisionism on the head of Ahad Ha’Am. It is quite true that the viewpoint cited is expressed in Ahad Ha’Am’s writings, and if memory serves me, not once but several times. Nevertheless, Ahad Ha’Am was as remote from Kevisionism, as East is from West. I use the comparison between the East and the West, because Ahad Ha’Am, in every facet of his endeavors was consistently an outspoken exponent of the Jewish Eastern culture. Revisionism, on the other hand, is an outspoken Western product, fruit of the post-war psychology. The use of physical force to achieve spiritual goals was hated by Ahad Ha’Am. More than any one else, he believed in he moral force of his ideology. More than any one else, he was convinced that through the moral impact of his ideology, the goal would be achieved.

“Now come the very antithesis of the Revisionists, the peace makers-they who are ready to regard as peace a pact which decrees that the Jewish side should renounce 95% of its claims and its opponents only 5%. They, too fall back on Ahad Ha’Am for support. They, too single out individual points from Ahad Ha’Am’s writings, segregate them from their context, and seek in these separated expressions a defense for their political manoeuvers.

“I know of occasions when outspoken opponents of Jewish national renaissance, more especially reform Rabbis, who are uninformed on prolems of nationalism in general, and Jewish nationalism in particular, have turned to Ahad Ha’Am for substantiation of the justice of their convictions.

“Ahad Ha’Am was not an eclectic. His point of view was never a combination of various theories. His world conceptions were forceful, unified. Their formulation was always clear cut and exact. The fact that there are today people of antagonistic viewpoint, who wish under all circumstances to attach themselves to Ahad Ha’Am, serves to prove how terrible it is to isolate from the context of a clearly defined philosophy single citations and to advance them as the core of that philosophy.

“It should be said for Ahad Ha’Am at the very outset, that he was and remained until his very last breath, one of the strongest defenders, heart and mind, of nationalism as a powerful, driving force in history. He recognized Nationalism not only as an active force, which whom peace must be made, but as a demand evoked by the highest principles of justice. That is why he waged war on every imitation, every assimilationist tendency, no matter how disguised, as the expression of a slavish instinct. Slavish instincts were to him, not only anti-esthetic, but anti-moral.

“Secondly, Ahad Ha’Am believed that the Jewish people, more than any other, had been insulted and imposed upon by the world. He did not conceive that because the wrong was of such long standing the Jewish people had forfeited their right to demand from the civilized world that it should support their efforts to free themselves from everlasting subjugation.

“Thirdly, freedom to Ahad Ha’Am was indissolubly bound up with Palestine. The Arabs did not come to Palestine after the Balfour Declaration. Ahad Ha’Am was aware of their existence long before the Balfour Paper. On the other hand. Ahad Ha’Am never relinquished, in a single iota, his demands for justice. He did not conceive the fact that a large population of Arabs lived in Palestine to be in conflict with the demands of highest justice. He maintained that if it was conceded that possession by priority seizure by force, constituted a permanent claim, there would be no justice in the world. He believed further it good will were created between the Jews and the Arabs, there would be simple place in Palestine for a free development for both the Jews and the Arabs, who as a nation possess lan###fty times as large in area as Palestine.

“Fourthly, the cardinal point of Ahad Ha’Am’s philosophy consists of the following: A national cultural center must be established in Palestine. This does not mean that Palestine must be converted into a country of Jewish public schools, high schools and colleges, without a healthy, self-sustaining economic foundation. Against such a narrow interpretation of a national Jewish cultural center, Ahad Ha’Am battled by word of mouth and pen throughout his life. One need only read his reports on Palestine in the first years of the Jewish pioneer work to learn how simultaneously Ahad Ha’Am concerned himself with the economic side of the renaissance. He insisted upon the name, National Cultural Center, because from the purely economic standpoint, Palestine could solve the problem of only a portion of the Jewish people. As a national cultural force, however, Palestine can exercise a tremendous influence upon the entire Jewish people. A standard of unforced, free, idealistic Jewish living would be created which would serve as (Continued on Page 8)

a reservoir of creative power for that portion of the Jewish people living outside of Palestine. The difficulties of the renaissance movement to Ahad Ha’am lay in the people not in the land. It can be formulated thus: Through the people, Palestine is built up. Through Palestine, the people are built up. Ahad Ha’am would never have refused a Palestine which could absorb all the Jews of the world. He considered the possibilities of such an eventuality, however, and in view of the limited possibilities, he sought the maximum under the circumstances. He saw the maximum in the quality of the movement, not its quantity.

“Following the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, he wrote his famous dissertation on it. He was primarily concerned with the introduction to the Declaration which recognizes the historic connection of the Jewish people with Palestine. All other factors might change, but this recognition remains, and there fin lies the key to the rebuilding of Palestine, he maintained. Following the severe disturbances of 1921 in Palestine, Ahad Ha’Am issued a public warning against any feeling of revenge towards the Arabs. The best elements in Palestine and throughout the world are faithful to the tenet of the great Jewish cultural leader. There is no need to push against an open door.”

Pointing out that it never occurred to Ahad Ha’Am that people would advance his theories as an argument for limiting Jewish colonization in Palestine, S. Rosenfeld. writing in “The Day,” discusses the famous philosopher’s theories about a Jewish cultural corner in Palestine.

“It never occurred to Ahad Ha’Am that people would advance his plan for a cultural corner in Palestine as an argument for limiting Jewish colonization it and rendering it superfluous Yet just such an even-ability has occurred.

“Certainly those elements not particularly ### to the Jews, and even the Jews who are our friends, have long demanded and now in particular persist in ### a cultural center along the likes proposed by Ahad Ha’Am serve as the ### of the Jewish National Home proposed by Theodor Hervl Both these elements, the Jews and the non-Jews are convinced that if the Jews desired to create only a cultural center in Palestine, it would he the best thing for all concerned. The Arab population would place no obstacles in the way. The British Government would he able to grant the Jewish demands with more case. Peace would reign throughout the world.

“What is mean by a cultural center in Palestine. To the non-Jews the meaning is very clear. They have the living example to follow. Every religion, every sect, every people and every country, has in Palestine a cultural center. Catholic and Protestanm, German Lutherans and Swedish Lutherans, Scotch Presbyterians, Baptists, Mormons, Quakers and other sects-all have their centers in Palestine. The center consists of a church, monastery, hospital and similar institutions, maintained on charitable funds, serving the permanent residents of the center, the missionaries and the monks, on the one hand, and the pilgrims who gather from all corners of the world to ask the lessing of God at the Holy Places. The number of people subsisting on these centers runs into the high thousands. The priests do not a stitch of work, read women’s prayers, chase fleas and apportion blessings. Each one is a representative of his religion or sect. All these “holy people” affiliated with the cultural centers live on funds received from abroad-from governments, from institutions, and from private individuals. There are rich centers and poorer centers. Some are thickly populated, others thinly populated. It all depends upon the pocket which supports these cultural centers and its resources. All these centers are ‘reservoirs’ from which their supporters, directly or indirectly, garner the creed by which they live.

“The non-Jews therefore look upon a Jewish cultural center in the same light. There is no easier undertaking than the establishment of such a center, in their opinion. Are there not enough yeshivas, hermits, hospitals and “holy people” to go round in Palestine and outside of Palestine. They need have no financial worries because their income will be derived from funds from abroad. A “holy spirit” in the Jewish image is to be created, collected in reservoirs and dispensed, directly or indirectly among our adherents and supporters throughout the world. No economic or social question is in the least involved. The center is practically completed. All that is required is that the Jews should unite on the question of a cultural center and there is not the slightest measure of a doubt, but that the Grand Mufti, Luke, the Palestine Government, the British Government, will gladly hand over to as the Wailing Wall and even the adjoining tomb of El Burak, legendary horse of the Mohamnendan prophet. So much for the non-Jewish point of view.

“The Jews, on the other hand should know that such a cultural center has no relation to the cultural center which Ahad Ha’Am conceived-not even if a University should replace the Church a great library the monastery, and students the priests. The reason is that the spiritual center which Ahad Ha’Am conceived was also a material center. He did not believe that Palestine could solve the problem of all the Jews throughout the world. He did believe, however. Palestine could solve the problems of Judaism. He believed that Palestine could provide a center where Jews might live in accept with the Jewish spirit: that the Jewish spirit would renew itself in Palestine, root itself and provide the mainspring of Jewish life and inspiration for the Jews throughout the world, in every field of endeavor.

“Palestine can be a spiritual center only for all Jewry; that is, it can wield a spiritual influence. A material center, an actual home for all Jews, Palestine cannot be, Ahad Ha’Am believed.

“A cultural center for all Jews; for the Jews of Palestine a home. Not a home dependent on donations, charity, subsidies from abroad. But a home in which every member of the community is a productive factor, living on the earnings of his own labors, occupied with those duties necessary to the creation of a home, to his own well-being. Palestine could not absorb the whole of the Jewish people, but only a minority group. So Ahad Ha’Am believed. But the larger that minority, the greater the possibilities for a Jewish development in particular and a humane development in general. Necessary to the existence of this minority are fields and gardens, factories and warehouses, and the feeling that it is living in a home securely founded. Ahad Ha’Am considered further that the more land redeemed, the more firmly established, the more meaningful would be the cultural center. The better the worker in town and country were treated the more peacefully would the Jew live with the fellaheen despite the efforts of the sheiks and the effendis to break up such a peaceful relationship.

“The division between Ahad Ha’Am and Herzl consisted in the following: Herzl declared: ‘First, let us receive international guarantees and then we will build’ Ahad Ha’Am, on the other hand, urged: ‘First let us build. The guarantees of the world will come in the course of time.’ Ahad Ha’Am asked for the Yishub, field and factory, just as did Herzl. With Herzl, Ahad Ha’Am agreed that all three must be safeguarded by the guarantees of the world. Ahad Ha’Am understood further that even his cultural center could be a success only when the Jews constituted a majority in the country, not a majority of hermits, psalm chanters, blessing dispensers, but a majority concerned with agriculture, industry, commerce. In brief, his position was identical with that of Herzlian Zionism. Only Ahad Ha’Am warned against too great haste. “Certainly we must speed up the course of history. But we must know what time to choose. If you want to enter a closed house, possibly you will achieve your ends if you push against the door. But you will never achieve your goal if you push against a wall.’ That was his credo. He counselled open eyes and sober judgment. But he does not retreat from a single position which political Zionism regards as necessary to the achievement of the goals of Zionism.

“Jewish politicians Zionists, and Zionist leaders should understand the meaning of Ahad Ha’Am’s cultural center. And if they are aware of its (Continued on Page 12)

“Serious advocates of the philosophy of Ahad Ha’am should know that Ahad Ha’Am demanded of the supporters of his cultural center the fullest justice to the Arabs, complete honesty in their dealings with the Arabs and in their attitude to the future.

“Those who advance the theory that a cultural center in the spirit of Ahad Ha’Am’s conception, is less than a national home, the be-all and end-all of a national home, fool only themselves or others. At any rate, they do not belong to that just, upright group which Ahad Ha’Am desired to people his center.”