HABONIM AND AMERICAN ZIONISM

In the twenty-five years since the founding of Habonim there has been very little but nevertheless some appreciable change in the relation of Habonim to American Zionism. The position, as some of us saw it, in those early days was this: Habonim, like other chalutz movements, was an inevitable outgrowth of Zionism taken seriously; but this sort of youthful, fanatical consistency was regarded as unnatural by the conventional Zionist movements. The position today shows a somewhat subtle difference: not only Habonim but the conventional Zionist movement has been challenged to produce chalutzim as an obligation of Zionism taken seriously; but while both have encountered the difficulties of such a demand, the conventional Zionist movement seeks to evade them by ideological innovations, while the central ideology of Habonim is a direct recognition both of chalutziut as an obligation and of the difficulties inherent in the American situation.

It is necessary, perhaps, to add a few words regarding my own position in relation to both Habonim and conventional American Zionism. I believed then, and do now, that chalutziut is an inevitable consequence and obligation, if Zionism is taken seriously. At the same time, I was then, and still remain, constitutionally opposed to the characteristic principles of a youth movement as a social phenomenon. I am prejudiced in favor of ideals which emerge from a conscientious, open confrontation of personal and social situations and against ideals induced by early indoctrination of the innocent and maintained by sectarian isolationism. Consequently, the Zionist ideal, and chalut-ziut as the ultimate expression of Zionism taken seriously, have to emerge spontaneously and justify themselves critically in continuous response to the demands of the personal and social situation of American Jews, if they are to pass the test of my prejudices.

What follows should be read in the light of the above paragraph, for the personal bias I have referred to has undoubtedly contributed to the picture I shall now give of Habonim and of American Zionism. It may even have distorted the picture in some ways unknown to me, in spite of a sincere attempt to be self-critical, not merely critical.

While Habonim today seems to me to meet my specifications for critical idealism very well—a result which perhaps reflects also a mellowing of my specifications—1 do not suppose that this is any more than a coincidence. In the historical background of the Labor Zionist movements as a whole, and of the Labor Zionist youth movements, are two roughly distinguishable factors: on one hand, a theoretical analysis of the contemporary Jewish situation resulting in a dogmatic program derived not from America but from the Continent, and especially Eastern Europe; and on the other, a mystique of rebellion which easily translates itself, especially in the case of youth movements, into a myth of collective avant-gardism capable of maintaining the esprit de corps of an organized, self-conscious, elite group in spite of an initial lack of political and social programs or subsequent radical alterations of them. Merely to illustrate my distinction, and without any pretense that this description gives an adequate account of the history and nature of the movements in question, I should say that the Left Poale Zion represents roughly a movement dominated by the first factor, and Hashomer Hatzair, a movement dominated by the second factor.

Habonim was established in 1935 as a successor to an earlier Labor Zionist youth movement, the Young Poale Zion Alliance. The new organization differed from its predecessor by a greater stress on preparation for chalutziut, but this difference was a difference in degree, not in kind. The YPZA was quite aware of the obligation to produce ckalutzim and was far from ineffective, relatively speaking, in accomplishing this task. Another, related difference, too, should not be overemphasized. As a "youth" edition of the doctrines of its parent organization, YPZA's Labor Zionist program stressed Gegenwartsarbeit —socialist and Zionist Diaspora activity—as much as its "Palestinocentric" functions. We have already noted that YPZA was not ineffective in producing chalutzim. In the same way, Habonim, even though its major direct aim was training chalutzim and the other functions were played down, never felt entirely detached from the problems of Diaspora living. The real difference was twofold: Habonim, unlike YPZA, adopted the techniques, and with them some of the psychology, of a youth movement in the service of its Zionist objectives; and, as a result, its commitment to a theoretical analysis and a specific dogmatic program was loosened.

Not that the YPZA or, for that matter, its parent organizations, were excessively dogmatic organizations. The Poale Zion-Zeire Zion, as a union of a Marxist and non-Marxist socialist Zionist organization, was united more by its specific tasks than by its ideological analysis of the Jewish fate and future. Political and other support for the growing labor community in Palestine, educational and cultural projects in the Diaspora, and participation in the general socialist movement were the elements of the organization's consensus, not an implicit universal acceptance of every detail of Borochov's theories regarding the iron laws of the deproletarization and economic expulsion of the Jews and of the "stychic" process of resettlement in Palestine. However, in a general way, the organization was fairly well agreed on an analysis and dogmatic program for Jewish life in the Diaspora and in Palestine. While it labored with dedication to set up Yiddish schools and other organs of Jewish culture and fought for the promotion of a communal nationality of the Jews in the Diaspora, based on guarantees of autonomy and on democratic, communal self-government, the general assumption of the party was that assimilation and anti-Semitism, political, social, and economic, in the Diaspora made the new labor commonwealth being built up in the Jewish National Home the only secure foundation for a full and free Jewish life in the future. For the youth movement, dedicating itself to the "personal realization" of that future ideal immediately, the ideological analysis and program were of more critical importance than they were for the senior movement, which more readily found its raison d'etre in Gegenwartsarbeit—that is, in activities expressly understood as having a merely provisional, immediate importance.

Both a classic Zionist youth movement, like Hashomer Hatzair, and a conventional Zionist organization, like the senior Labor Zionist Organization, have certain defenses which can protect them from the unsettling need to examine ideology critically. The sense of being rebellious and advanced, which is the essential element in youth movement esprit de corps, does not suffer from frequent adjustment of ideological line; for the system of indoctrination enables the changes —which generally represent casuistically applications of unaltered dogma —to be smoothly absorbed. The conventional Zionist organizations —that is, those of them who, like the Labor Zionists, began with a more or less developed ideology—were protected against the urge to re-examine ideology critically by the doctrine of Gegenwartsarbeit. This characteristic distinction between minimum and maximum, immediate and ultimate objectives enables an organization to keep intact an ideological analysis and program to the remote future and to locate the analysis in the imperceptible depths.

A chalutz movement is essentially committed to the immediate, personal realization of ultimate and maximum objectives. By deliberately making this commitment its central raison d'etre, the youth movement of the Poale Zion-Zeire Zion, converting from YPZA to Habonim, abandoned the safeguard which protected its senior organization from the need to examine ideology critically. What is striking about Habonim is that, in adopting the methods of a youth movement, it did not at the time adopt those safeguards against ideological disturbance which are at the disposal of other youth movements. There was virtually a deliberate rejection of the idea of "ideological collectivism" in Habonim. It was particularly marked in the decision that aliya was an obligation all members must freely accept; that the organization had room for members who, for one reason or another, did not go on aliya; and that for those who did go, while organized collective entry into a particular kibbutz set-up was the approved way, members were free to choose other destinations and other paths in settling in Israel.

What happened in Habonim in 1935 was paralleled, in a way, by the ideological emergency that suddenly confronted Diaspora Zionism, and especially American Zionism, after the rise of the State of Israel. The demand by Israel Zionists that aliya be declared an obligation of all Zionists forced a serious consideration of ideological issues upon conventional Zionist organizations that had hitherto been satisfied with a few traditional formulas only vaguely connected with their actual functions and current activities. The main ideological result, however, was only a critical rebuttal of traditional Zionist analysis of the political, economic, and, to a large extent, cultural and social morbidity of Jewish life in the Diaspora. There was very little new affirmative theory, for the faith that the Diaspora would be permanent and could be healthy led to programs of action, not to new theoretical analysis.

This, then, was the consequence of resistance to making aliya an avowed duty of Zionists. Habonim began with an acceptance of the duty of aliya, but with a method of free choice; the result of which was that aliya had to spring not only from early indoctrination and the discipline of an organization, but also from the resolution of one's own problematic personal and social situation.

The ideological concern that resulted was less drastic, perhaps, than in the case of the conventional organizations, for two reasons: first, since the duty of aliya was accepted, not resisted, there was a less pressing need to rebut traditional arguments tending to show that aliya was a "stychic" inevitability, arising from the heightening contradictions in the political, economic, social, and cultural situations of the Diaspora. On the other hand, Habonim was concerned to relate the need of aliya to the freely confronted personal situation of its members, so that it, too, was quick to see how little Borochovist explanations helped American chaverim meet their own problem. Besides, secondly, aliya as a solution for Americans who cannot or do not wish to live in the American Diaspora is an undertaking that can appeal to only a few American Jewish young people, not conceivably to the whole community. An ideal for a select group does not ordinarily lend itself to the pretentious style of ideological formulations.

I cannot conclude, however, without this final word. Those who begin with an inability or unwillingness to accept the Diaspora state of Jewishness are, perhaps, more open to an understanding of its problematic nature than those who are determined to defend and preserve it.

BEN HALPERN, Boston, 1959