Growing Up an American Zionist

Aaron Agranat was attracted to Zionism even before Theodor Herzl published "The Jewish State" in 1896.^[18] In Russia he joined the Lovers of Zion—the late-nineteenth-century movement that anticipated Zionism and was close to the noted Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin. Aaron believed in political Zionism—in the need to build international support for a Jewish National Home—but he went further, to consider the revival of Jewish culture as Zionism's essence. In this spirit he raised his sons.

In the United States Aaron did not encounter the zeal for Zionism with which he was familiar in his native Russia. In Chicago he joined the Knights of Zion, an organization with only a handful of Jews, mainly Russian immigrants, centered in the Midwest. He was also a member of the Federation of American Zionists. By 1914, a decade after Herzl's death and Aaron's arrival in the United States, "the Zionist organization in the United States was weak, in financial distress, and with no influence in the Jewish Community. A spirit of gloom and defeat engulfed the few dedicated leaders."^[19] Simon grew up amidst this struggle, with his father instilling in him a commitment to Zionist ideology.

His afternoons were devoted to Jewish education. For a while he attended the Yiddishe Nazionalische Socialistische Schule, where he sang Yiddish songs and learned Jewish history from the perspective of Jewish cultural revival. Later, his father removed him from that school, to give him more time to study Hebrew. Hebrew, the sacred language now revived, was so central to Aaron that he even objected to Simon's pursuing violin lessons, despite Simon's overt interest, on the ground that the violin might come at the expense of the Hebrew.

Religion was an integral part of the Agranat family life: they observed the ritual of Sabbath dinners and attended the Orthodox neighborhood

schule on the holidays (Conservative synagogues were still rare). The family's religiosity, however, was selective and flexible. Simon's mother never attended religious services, and his father worked regularly on Saturday mornings. Like many sensitive children, Simon had his "religious period" at the age of twelve or thirteen, when he prayed daily and, following Saturday services, arrived at his father's office to discuss the rabbi's sermon. "If you wish to pray every day, at least use a biblical chapter as your prayer," he remembered his father's advising. This admonition reflected Aaron's belief, in the spirit of the Haskalah, that one should deemphasize the rabbinical texts developed in exile and restore the centrality of the Bible—the book written when the Jews were an independent nation. The Agranats had a constructive approach to religion. They would neither subordinate their lives to religious rules and dogma, as the Orthodox had done, nor adopt a thoroughly secular lifestyle. Thus Simon grew up in a moderate home, one that acknowledged the value of religion without obeying religion's overbearing, fundamentalist commands.

As Simon entered adolescence, Jewish life in Chicago became more organized. The Conservative movement and Young Judea began to take root.^[20] Both sought to adjust religion to modernity in general and to American reality in particular. In 1921 Sam Strauss, one of Simon's childhood friends and an active member of the Young Judea club, described the movement:

Stand outside of a public school, in a Jewish neighborhood, and think of the hundreds of Jewish children who crowd the school—how many are learning Hebrew? Very few. . . . [W]hat do these . . . boys and girls do? They roam the streets, play with the non-Jewish children in the neighborhood, and little by little they forget whatever they ever knew about Judaism. . . . Then Young Judea steps in. The older children join a Young Judea club. The scene is transformed. They begin to ask their parents questions on Jewish history and customs. Presently the parents' stock of knowledge is exhausted. The children begin to teach their parents! The parents begin to take an interest in their children's Jewish education. . . . They seek to better their environment. They become Jewish to the core.^[21]

Aaron Agranat suggested that a Young Judea club be established in northwest Chicago, after Simon, then eleven or twelve years old, expressed an interest in pursuing some organized public activity. In the club, which met twice a week at the Talmud Torah of the United Congregation, the children discussed and celebrated Jewish holidays and engaged in debates with members of other Young Judea clubs, on such topics as "Purim is a greater holiday than Hanukkah," or "Public utilities [should] be nationally

owned and controlled immediately upon the establishment of the Jewish state."^[22] Simon was an active member of the club, first as a regular member and later as a Young Judean leader. Club members became his closest and lifelong friends: Harry Ruskin, later a prominent Chicago lawyer; Meyer Handler, later an international correspondent for the New York Times ; and Ben Sackheim, later the owner of a successful advertising agency in New York. The youngsters adored their instructor—Isaac Schour—known for his propensity for reconciliation and compromise. In the Northwest Young Judea Club, Simon's ambition and talents bloomed. He decided to publish a monthly magazine, The Herzlite , therein to explore his world and the world of his peers. The ambitious project yielded only one issue, whose pages reflect the mix of American Progressivism and utopian Zionism that dominated Simon's world in those years.^[23]

The Young Judeans took to the task of publication enthusiastically. They created a staff complete with an editor-in-chief (Simon), an associate editor (Harry Ruskin), an assistant editor (Meyer Handler), a staff artist (Leo Wolf), and a business department with a circulation manager, an advertising manager, and staff stenographers. They turned out a twenty-three-page publication complete with editorials, articles, comic strips, advertisements, and an aesthetic cover featuring a royal portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism.

Leo Wolf, the staff artist, who later ran a commercial art firm in Chicago, remembered the excitement of assembling the magazine. Leo's father, a tailor, owned a large, long table on which he would cut cloth. The table was cleared, and the youngsters used it to spread out the sheets of paper and assemble the magazine. The Agranats' involvement in the project is clear from the "contributions" section, which featured the extended Agranat family: parents, aunts, uncles, and family friends.

The Herzlite reflects the efforts made by Simon's generation to come to terms with the meaning of being Jewish in America and with the impact of Zionism on their emerging identity. All of them either had been born in the United States to immigrant parents or had immigrated themselves at a tender age. Their parents struggled to make a living—as tailors, shopkeepers, day laborers. The cultural world of their parents was the shtetl. At home they heard Yiddish. At school they were initiated into the American world. It was a world that retained the familiar stereotypes of their parents' world, yet held so much hope for a better future. Simon himself did not recall any incidents of anti-Semitism in northwest Chicago in the Wilson era, but his fellow Young Judeans had many stories to tell.

For example, Mary Satinover, who lived not far from Simon, remembered verbal abuse and anti-Semitic epithets hurled at her as she crossed the "Polish" neighborhood on her way to buy ice at a discount place. But there was also a sunny side to America. These teenagers believed that the anti-Semitism was not official. As Americans, they were to be the beneficiaries of Progressivism. They possessed the firm confidence that talent and hard work would be rewarded. Indeed, all did enjoy successful careers as businessmen or professionals.

How, then, would they reconcile these contradictory aspects of their identity? What did it mean to hear Yiddish at home but feel more comfortable speaking English? The joke section of The Herzlite is a good-humored effort to make sense of the mystery of the conflicting languages and cultural traditions in the world of Simon's generation:

Mystery
I know who put the itch in Itchkovitz
And I know who put the awful booze in Bam
But the thing that's really worse
Than the names I've named at first
Is the fact that there's a ham in Abraham.

The Herzlite was published during Passover, the most powerful Jewish statement against exile. Was America another form of "exile"? Could one faithfully repeat the sentence that ends the seder, "Next year in Jerusalem," and yet be fully American?

These issues touched the nerves of both Zionism and American patriotism. If Zionism meant a radical denial of galut and insisted that Jewish liberation could be attained only through life in a Jewish state, did that mean that the sense of comfort Jews were experiencing in America was false? If American nationalism required a melting pot, did it reject the retention of cultural identity, or did it tolerate ethnic pluralism, a symphony of traditions?

The Passover Haggadah depicts four sons arguing about the significance of Passover: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one "who knows not to ask a question." The Herzlite 's leading article, entitled "The Four Modern Sons of the Hagadah," written by a fellow Young Judean, J. Licterman, but bearing the marks of Simon's influence, explores the dimensions of the Jewish dilemma. It provides an insight into the world of these youngsters, who were deft at making arguments in support of Zionism yet conflicted by their own love for America, who felt abandoned by the large majority of American Jews who rejected Zionism yet longed

for a legitimating synthesis between their particular tradition and the ethos of the melting pot.

The Herzlite presents "self" as the modern rendition of the wicked son: a stereotype of the newly emerging, materialistic, American Jew, "interested in nothing but his own affairs." Clearly, this character is unattractive to the public-spirited youngsters. Even the drawing that accompanies the article depicts "self" in profile, whereas the other three sons face the reader. His dismissal sets the stage for the titanic wrestling between the Zionist (the "wise") and the assimilationist (the "simple") sons.

The assimilationist rejects the relevance of Passover to American reality: "How does it concern us now?" he asks, "It all happened long ago." And furthermore, "I am very comfortable here. This country suits me." The Zionist invokes the argument most compelling to European Jewish ears: that exile entailed catastrophe, pogroms, and persecution. But the assimilationist is not persuaded, for the argument fails to reflect his American reality: "We're not persecuted here"; "America is free to all. We have just as much rights as anybody else." In rebuttal, the Zionist resorts to anti-Semitism: "You are mistaken. We are only tolerated. Go to any college and try to join a fraternity. See if they will take you." It is interesting that the assimilationist does not rebut this argument. Apparently the youngsters could not agree about the impact of anti-Semitism on their future. Even the Zionist makes his argument about anti-Semitism only halfheartedly and immediately proceeds to his next argument—false consciousness. "Because here to [sic ], in America, a free country, you are a slave. Not a physical but a moral slave, doing as all around you do, losing all your Judaism, trying to live up to your gentile neighbors, and I must admit, to my sorrow, that you for one are succeeding very well." Here the argument stopped. Not surprisingly, the assimilationist was not endowed with enough sophistication to turn this weapon against the Zionist and accuse him of "false consciousness."

The Herzlite ends the dialogue with the assimilationist cheerfully dismissing the subject as "a heap of nonsense" and joining "self" for a night at the movies. Before they leave, however, The Herzlite marks the assimilationist with the quintessential attribute of assimilation—self-hatred: "Yes, let's go. . . . Live in a Jewish country? I see enough 'Kikes' here." The assimilationist is a self-hating Jew who has internalized the prejudices of anti-Semitism and identified with the victimizers. Rushing to a happy end, the article has the "wise son" and the "one who knows not to ask a question" conduct their own brief dialogue, whereby the innocent son is "convinced of the necessity of Zionism" as well as of the desirability

of joining the Young Judeans. A moral was added in capital letters: "WHERE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS HOPE."

Simon's contribution to the dialogue between assimilationist and Zionist is most emblematic of the dilemmas that Zionism posed to American Jewish youth. Simon suggested that the very first argument advanced by the Zionist be the need to have a country of one's own. At his suggestion, the Zionist introduced his position by quoting from Sir Walter Scott's poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,—
This is my own, my native land!

The message was clear: Zion was the Jews' own native land. Ironically, the context in which Simon had become acquainted with the poem was American patriotism, not Zionism. At school Simon participated in a play entitled The Slacker , based on Edward Everett Hale's story, The Man without a Country . The story, incorporating Scott's poem, was widely taught in American elementary schools, presumably to nurture patriotism and love of country in the immigrant children. The man without a country was a young military officer convicted of treason during the War of Independence, who cavalierly told the judge, "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" He was sentenced to have his wish fulfilled: never to set foot in the United States, nor receive any information about the country. The story describes the misery of the young man, exiled aboard U.S. navy ships for more than forty years, as he came to realize the barrenness of life without a country. His last wish was that a stone be placed in his memory, saying: "He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands." In Simon's mind the Zionist argument, that outside Zion Jews were persons without a country, was associated with the travails of Hale's expatriate. Palestine (Zion) was an abstract notion; the concrete country was America. He took the only "love to country" that he had actually experienced—love of America—and, through Sir Walter Scott's poem, transferred it to Palestine. There was a double irony here: the name of the ship aboard which the officer died was The Levant —French for the Middle East. In Hale's story the Levant was exile and America was home. Simon inverted the ingredients, making America exile and the Levant (Zion) the Jew's native land.^[24]

The problem was that Simon and his friends did experience themselves as American. Love of Zion, certainly the claim that Zion was the true

native land, raised the scary specter of disloyalty. Louis D. Brandeis, leader of both the Progressive and the Zionist movements and the first Jewish justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, showed them how to resolve the conflict.