American Orthodoxy’s Response to the Establishment of the Jewish State

 

by Rabbi Berel Wein

During the Second World War, American Jewry, at least the Jews in Chicago where I lived, knew that the situation in Europe was bad, but I don’t think any of us knew how bad it was. The Jewish community back then had no real political power and not much wealth. There was a general malaise. American Orthodox Jews felt there was little they could do. 

On top of that, the religious structure of the American Jewish community was very weak. The younger generation of Jews in America was basically non-observant. The majority of American Jews had inherited their family traditions, but were not Jewishly educated or observant.  

In 1950, Look, a popular magazine in those days, dedicated an issue to the topic of 300 years of Jews in America, 1650-1950. In the article, the author stated that the Conservative movement would become mainstream Judaism—the Orthodox would disappear completely and the Reform would assimilate.  

There were dozens of boys on my block on the West Side of Chicago, all of them Jewish. We all went to public school. I was the only one of the group who was shomer Shabbos. Once I got older, I decided to go to law school even though I had always wanted to be a rabbi; there were no positions in the Orthodox rabbinate.  

Soon after World War II, refugees started to drift in. Some of the refugees, especially the rabbinic refugees, were people of immense strength and vision who said, “We’re going to build [Torah Judaism] all over again. We’re not satisfied with [American Jews saying], ‘This is America and this is how we’re going to do it.’” It was unacceptable to them. These were the teachers I had in Beis HaMidrash LaTorah, the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago. They were all European rabbis and great talmidei chachamim, tremendous people, all of whom had had very difficult lives. 

It was an all-Yiddish-speaking yeshivah. It was not so much that these rabbanim communicated to us the knowledge of Torah as much as the geshmak of Torah—how pleasant, how wonderful Torah is. The message they conveyed to us was how fortunate we were to be able to be in a place where we could study Torah. How fortunate we were that we could perform mitzvos. They never spoke about what  happened to them. They always spoke about what was going to be, and what we were supposed to be, and that it was our task to rebuild the Jewish people. Over time, dozens and dozens of Jewish leaders came from the yeshivah and, in fact, even entire communities in Israel. (The aliyah rate from Chicago was enormous.) 

But what really inspired us was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The birth of Israel was so unlikely, so unnatural. The years preceding it were so devastating: the British blockade, the Holocaust, the thousands of refugees, the internal strife. But G-d has His ways—which is basically the story of the Jewish people. 

I remember the day the State of Israel was declared; it was on a Friday afternoon. I walked to shul with my father, of blessed memory, who was not an especially outwardly emotional person; he had the stoicism of the Lithuanian Jews. But as we walked to shul, I saw that he was weeping. It made an enormous impression upon me. 

That Sunday night, the Zionist organization in Chicago sponsored a rally on behalf of the State of Israel at Chicago Stadium, where the basketball team played. There were about 20,000 Jews inside the stadium, and another 40,000 to 50,000 Jews in the parking lot. Golda Meir was the guest of honor; she was in America raising funds for purchasing arms on the open market in Europe since the American government wouldn’t sell arms to Israel. 

The program began with the raising of the Israeli flag to the stadium rafters. When that happened, 2,000 years of exile poured out of us. It was a sea of tears. Had I been running the program, I would have said, “That’s it. End it now. Better you’re not going to get!” Indeed, the rest of the program was anticlimactic.  

All my teachers from the yeshivah were in attendance, though none of them were Zionists. That made a tremendous impression upon us.  

When Ben-Gurion came to Chicago to sell Israel bonds in the early 1950s, there was a meeting at a big hotel. We went out of curiosity—we couldn’t afford to buy a bond, but we wanted to see what Ben-Gurion looked like. Our rebbi, who was not a Zionist, was also there. The next day, during the shiur, he asked, “What did you see last night?” He would always ask certain kinds of questions to give us a different perspective. “I saw 500 people and somebody speaking” wasn’t the answer he was looking for. 

“What I saw was that the children of Abraham stood in line to give away money,” he said. “That’s what I saw.” That was the attitude of the time: we must support the Jewish State. The truth is that many Jews felt that Israel wasn’t going to make it. They saw the country’s Communist-Socialist patchwork economy, which has never worked and never will, as doomed to failure. Moreover, Israel was taking in a million refugees and fighting a perpetual war with the Arabs. At the same time, the Soviet Union was saying, “we’re going to destroy you,” and the Western world was apathetic. There were great people, both in the US and in Israel, who said the State wouldn’t last fifteen years. But as I said, G-d has His ways.   

Concurrent with the creation of the State of Israel, in America there developed a much more learned, successful and influential Orthodox Jewish community than anyone ever imagined. I believe that without the State of Israel, Lakewood wouldn’t exist in America. Satmar wouldn’t exist in America. There’d be neither the OU nor YU. The State of Israel provided an unexpected, miraculous platform upon which the Jewish people could build themselves. So even though politically, and almost as a matter of doctrine, there are sects of Orthodoxy who say they’re opposed to the State of Israel, in reality they are dependent upon it. 

Jewish youth across the board spend a year in Israel post high school. Where do American Jews go for vacation? Where do we go to visit? The lynchpin for the revival of Torah Jewry in the Diaspora is the State of Israel.  

There are electric moments in life. The Six-Day War was one of them. At the time, I was in Miami Beach, where I was the rav of a shul. I was driving and had the radio on, and suddenly a news bulletin announced that the Old City of Jerusalem had fallen into Israeli hands. Then they played Colonel Motta Gur declaring “HaKotel b’yadeinu! Har Habayit b’yadeinu! The Kotel is in our hands! The Har Habayit is in our hands!” and Rabbi Shlomo Goren blowing the shofar. I stopped the car, and got out in the middle of the street, and so did everyone else because Miami Beach was 99 percent Jewish. Complete strangers got out of their cars and hugged each other.   

Today, when I reflect upon Israel, I think of the following story: When my oldest grandson was turning three, I wanted to buy him a toy that was educational and innovative and would last for years. After quite a bit of research, I purchased the toy and presented it to him. He spent the next hour playing with the box. 

That’s us. We are playing with the box. We don’t appreciate the gift that’s in it. How did Israel end up with seven million Jews? It’s the largest number of Jews ever in the Land of Israel. Look at Yerushalayim today. People complain about the traffic. My father told me that when he was in Palestine in 1925, studying at Mercaz HaRav, there was one traffic light at Rechov Jaffa and King George. How did it happen that a bunch of shoemakers learned to fly an F-16?! 

Maybe we play with the box because if we played with the toy, it would overwhelm us. So we allow ourselves to be distracted by all the static—nonsense and politics. Meanwhile, the country is being built, and the Jewish world is being rebuilt. Mi milel l’Avraham heinikah banim Sarah?  [Who would have said to Avraham that Sarah would nurse children?] (Bereishis 21: 7) Who would have ever imagined such a thing?  

If you live long enough, you see a lot of things. That’s why the Gemara says, “Im chochmah ein kan, ziknah yeish kan, If there isn’t wisdom, there’s age, i.e., life experience.” I’m fortunate to have witnessed many things no one thought could ever happen.   

In Israel today, everything is on the ascent. I’m optimistic about us. I think the future of the Jewish people lies in the State of Israel. The exile is the tail of the dog, not the head. I think the Orthodox will get stronger, even though we face enormous challenges. Although truthfully it’s hard to predict anything about the Jewish people. If history has taught us anything, it’s taught us that our future is always unpredictable. But I think we’re too far along the way for it not to continue. Therefore, I believe even greater things are in store for us.   

Rabbi Berel Wein, founder and director of the Destiny Foundation, is a renowned author, lecturer and historian.