The Downfall of Abba Hillel Silver and the Foundation of Israel

ISBN-13: 9780815610359 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 288 str.

Ofer Shiff

Opis

In early February 1949 American Jewry s most popular and powerful
leader, Abba Hillel Silver (1893 1963), had summarily resigned from all
his official positions within the Zionist movement and had left New York for
Cleveland, returning to his post as a Reform rabbi. In the immediate years
prior to his resignation, during the second half of the 1940s, Silver was the
most outspoken proponent of the founding of a sovereign Jewish state. He
was the most instrumental American Jewish leader in the political struggle
that led to the foundation of the State of Israel. Paradoxically, this historic
victory also heralded Silver s personal defeat.
Soon after Israel s declaration of independence, he and many of his
American Zionist colleagues were relegated to the sidelines of the Zionist
movement. Almost overnight the most influential leader one who was admired
and feared by both supporters and opponents was stripped of his
power within both the Zionist and the American Jewish arenas.
Shiff s book discerns the various aspects of the striking turnabout in
Silver's political fate, describing both the personal tragic story of a leader
who was defeated by his own victory, and the much broader intra-Zionist
battle which erupted in full force immediately after the founding of Israel.
Drawing extensively on Silver s personal archival material, Shiff presents
an enlightening portrait of a critical episode in Jewish history. This book is
most relevant for anyone who attempts to understand the complex homeland-
diaspora relations between Israel and American Jewry."