Adventures in Jewish Studies

The Association for Jewish Studies Podcast

Episode 34: Alternative Zions: The Jewish Territorialist Movement

Transcript

Welcome to Adventures in Jewish Studies, the podcast of the Association for Jewish Studies. In every episode, we take you on an entertaining and intellectual journey about Jewish life, history and culture, with help from some of the world’s leading Jewish studies scholars. I’m your host for this episode, Devan Schwartz.

Already
We have crossed
Many deserts and seas,
Long we have walked,
Our strength is at an end. 

How 
have we gone astray?
When will we be unmolested?
That land of sun,That land never found.

Perhaps—
the Land no longer exists?
Surely—its radiance has grown dull!
To us
God bequeaths nothing—

That’s an excerpt from “They Say: There Is a Land,” by the famed Hebrew poet and translator, Shaul Tchernichovsky.

The quest for a homeland, to journey from bondage and persecution, has been inherent to Jewish history for as long as it’s been told, infusing many Jewish texts over so many centuries.

In 2007, Jewish American author Michael Chabon published the novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, in which he posits an alternate Jewish homeland, far from contemporary Israel, in a tract of land in Southeast Alaska. Instead of Israel, persecuted European Jews moved there in the 1930s.

Through this work of revisionist history, this fictional reimagining, Michael Chabon taps into a real vein of Jewish history. This was the imagining of, the searching for, and even the detailed planning for, a Zion outside of where Israel stands today. 

In this episode of Adventures in Jewish Studies, we explore the Jewish Territorialist Movement. We’ll journey across the globe to see what might’ve been…the Alternative homeland for the Jewish people–and what these projects teach us about Jewish history and culture to this very day. 

It’s nearly impossible now to discuss Israel without discussing Zionism, a specific brand of Jewish Nationalism that led to this particular homeland for the Jewish people, founded in 1948 on land known prior as British-Mandate Palestine.  

However you feel about the founding of Israel, and there are valid and potent feelings on many sides, this episode is not meant as a debate on the subject. Instead, we are looking back to the days when Zionism was still an idea, a concept, a goal. But not all Jews who wanted a place for their people to go to were strictly Zionists. Another movement was Jewish Territorialism–and it’s a history that’s not very well known.

ADAM ROVNER: “In one respect, the history of things that didn't happen is still history. Plans that were made, whether they be political, diplomatic, military, are still evidence of the sinking of that era, of that moment. And I think it helps to contextualize the choices that were ultimately made and the things that actually did occur afterwards.”

This is Adam Rovner, he directs the center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver and is the author of Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel.

ADAM ROVNER: “Now, these plans, these proposals were all real. They were backed by Jewish organizations, by leading Jewish individuals…They sent scientists and people of actual action out into the field in order to survey these lands. So in that sense, they were all very, very real. They weren't just paper proposals. They were real on the ground tactics to try to create some future for the Jewish people in different areas, different periods of time when Jews were subject to persecution.”

Territorialists wanted a place for Jews to be safe–but they were largely agnostic on the physical location, with plans encompassing many different countries and continents.  

We can trace this movement back to the 1800s–and a larger-than-life figure named Mordecai Manuel Noah. He was an American playwright, who had big ambitions for both himself and the Jewish people. Rovner explains how Noah traveled overseas as a diplomat to Tunis, then part of the Barbary States of North Africa.

ADAM ROVNER: “And it was thought by the American government that a Jewish diplomat would be a more honest broker than a Christian diplomat for the Muslims, because the Muslims and Christians were really at odds in that part of the world. So Noah went, did this diplomatic tour, and when he was there, he came into contact with Jews from Europe–and he heard about various Jewish communities and how they were oppressed. Later, he learned about the Hep-Hep riots that spread from 1819, into the next year throughout some of the German lands. And this sparked in him a desire to help his oppressed coreligionists in Europe and bring them to America.”

In 1820, Noah made his first pitch to resettle Jews in upstate New York, which at the time was a frontier area bordering British Canada. Part of the idea was that putting tens of thousands of Jews on Grand Island, near Buffalo, would be a bulwark against the British…and that would help support the nascent American Republic.

The island was larger than Manhattan, and due to its location as the terminus of the under-construction Erie Canal, Mordecai Manuel Noah saw its industrial and cultural potential.   

ADAM ROVNER: “And so he and others purchased land there. He purchased, I believe, 2000 acres thereabouts, in order to create the centerpiece of what was going to be called a Jewish sanctuary, a city state. He was going to call it Ararat–keeping with his name, Noah.”

Ararat, for those keeping track at home, is a biblical reference. That’s where Noah’s Ark came to rest after the flood, though Noah likely never found himself near the Erie Canal. So how did the project go?

ADAM ROVNER: “Well, it didn't go well. I think that he had a good spot in mind. He had the right political connections. He actually had the support of members of the Iroquois nation. the Seneca leader, Red Jacket, seemed to like the idea. Noah, like many, of the educated at the time, thought that the native American peoples were a lost Jewish tribes and remnants–and so he thought that creating this sanctuary city state for Jews and native peoples would be a good thing to in-gather the exiles on this land mass. In 1825 he held a cornerstone laying ceremony. The cornerstone still exists. It has the prayer of the Shema carved into it. In part, it's on display in the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Museum.” 

And what did the Rabbis in Europe think about all this? They were unimpressed. The chief Rabbi of France mocked the idea in letters–and the chief Rabbis of England, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic, opposed Jews flocking there, saying it was against God’s will. 

Rovner traveled to upstate New York using historical maps to pinpoint the exact tract of land Mordecai Manuel Noah had purchased. He found the historical marker right next to an American institution.

ADAM ROVNER: "That was, that was the least exotic spot I've visited…I don’t know if it’s still a Holiday Inn, but it was a big Holiday Inn at one time."

That’s right–a Holiday Inn.  

Now let’s advance to the start of the 20th century. And the movement to find a home for the Jews takes a quantum leap forward. 

Theodor Herzl, a Jewish Austro-Hungarian journalist, who would become known as the Father of Zionism, had argued in his pamphlet Der Judenstaat for a Jewish State either in Palestine, or even Argentina, which he called “one of the most fertile countries in the world.”

But in 1903, a Russian pogrom widened Herzl’s view. The Kishinez Massacre witnessed the death of 49 Jews on Easter, alongside the rape of over 600 women and hundreds of further injuries. 

Herzl was approached by England’s Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. His offer? A plot of land in Africa, a place for Jews to go. Called the Uganda Plan, it’s actually in modern Kenya, this error likely stemming from the recently-opened Uganda Railway.

Chamberlain mused the following in an official report composed during his travels in the continent: “If Dr. Herzl were at all inclined to transfer his efforts to East Africa there would be no difficulty in finding land suitable for Jewish settlers.”

Herzl, after warming up to the idea of foregoing Palestine, revealed this so-called Uganda Plan in 1903, at the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. It was framed as a temporary proposal to settle Jews, mostly eastern European and Russian, who were in peril. It would have provided, at least theoretically, a great deal of political and cultural autonomy.

Adam Rovner says that the Zionist congress, in a contentious vote, decided to send a mission to inspect the plot of African land. 

ADAM ROVNER: “So there were three people who went on this mission. I like to think of it as a kind of a joke. You had a Protestant, a muslim and a Jew traipsing through what was then little explored by Europeans, Western Africa.” 

But proponents of this plan were convinced of foul play. That Jewish man was Nachum Wilbusch. And, according to Rovner, he was playing a bit of a double game. You see, he was reporting back, in confidence, to Abraham Menachem Mendel Ussishkin, the unanointed leader of the Russian-led rejectionist campaign.

“The essence of Zionism,” Ussishkin wrote in response to the East Africa proposal, “is to save the Nation of Israel, not our poor brethren in Russia and Romania.”

And his man on the ground assured Ussishkin that the African land would be inherited by Africans and that the Jews, which he calls The Children of Shem, would inherit the land of Ottoman Palestine.

A major issue was the vivid descriptions of inhospitable land. But Rovner, on his own visit to the area, says the land there is actually quite fertile, much as it was back then. 

ADAM ROVNER: “And we bumped around these dirt roads using a contemporary map and a 1904 Zionist expedition map. in order to figure out where we were going. Climbed the mountain, they climbed, walked the pathways, they walked, as close as we were able to found ample water and, big farms, great soil, lovely people. It was a great, great journey.”

Geographic truths and lies set aside, the Uganda Plan was then set to a vote. 

This vote forever split off the nascent Jewish Territorialist Movement from the larger Zionist Movement. For more on this, we turn to Laura Almagor–a professor of modern Jewish history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She’s author of Beyond Zion: The Jewish Territorialist Movement.

LAURA ALAMGOR: “Two years later, after the scheduled vote on the proposal at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, leads to, first of all, the rejection of the proposal and the subsequent walkout of about 50 to 60 very prominent Zionists who then, establish the so-called Jewish territorialist Organization also known by its Yiddish acronym ITO under the leadership of what is really one of the central Zionist leaders until that point, the Anglo-Jewish, famed, Victorian author Israel Zangwill.”

The Jewish Territorialist Organization becomes a rival to the Zionist movement, arguing that a home for the Jews is needed…BUT that a better option might exist outside Palestine.

Meanwhile, Zionism continued to gain traction in the next decade and was highlighted by the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Named for British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, this declaration encouraged mass Jewish immigration to British-mandate era Palestine, which formerly had been Ottoman Palestine until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Zionists wanted a Jewish homeland–and one only there in Palestine, in Eretz Israel. Call it what you will, but the journey wasn’t easy. 

The Territorialists, led by Israel Zangwill, continued their search in Africa for a Jewish homeland. Libya was next, followed by Angola, in southern Africa.

The Portuguese government, who controlled Angola at the time, seemed to prefer a Jewish populace to an African one that was becoming increasingly hostile to Colonial rule.

ADAM ROVNER: “There were many Portuguese who claim proudly Jewish descent, partial Jewish descent, and many who did not. And those who did saw this as a way to in some ways restore Portugal as an empire to its glory by bringing in Jews, and also to atone for having expelled the Jews in in 1495”

Zangwill’s ITO <<EE-TOE>>, the Territorialists, were pretty strong at this time, and another commission was sent to inspect this possible Jewish territory. 

But Rovner says the Angola Plan essentially unraveled due to other priorities taking center-stage between England, Portugal, and other European nations as World War I began in 1914. 

Moving forward in time, Israel Zangwill succumbs to ill health and exhaustion, passing away in 1926.

The sway of the Territorialists peters out without its greatest champion…for a time. That is until the 1930s.

ADAM ROVNER: “It is revived with a vengeance in the late 1930s, well really starts in the mid 1930s with Hitler's rise to power–but especially so in the later 1930s as Poland begins tilting under the generals to towards a greater degree of vocal antisemitism–and Poland is looking for a way to get rid of its Jews, or a large percentage of them under this, increasing anti-Semitic pressure.”

But Poland didn’t have any colonies where they could consider moving their Jewish population. And Rovner says neither England nor France wanted a wave of Jewish immigration either, and clearly Germany wasn’t an option. 

Seeking a humanitarian solution to Jewish homelessness, the mantle of the Territorialist Movement is then taken up by the newly-formed Freeland League in London in 1935. It’s headlined by writers and intellectuals–and they start looking at French territories overseas.

ADAM ROVNER: “Madagascar is a big one. It's a massive island off the east coast of Africa. And it was at the time not very densely populated. The French really didn't know what to do with it, how to exploit it.”

Like previous plans, the colonial powers thought the Jews might act as a bulwark against the Indigenous populations. And in 1937, a Franco-Polish expedition was sent out to inspect the land. But their report wasn’t particularly positive–and the Madagascar Plan withered on the vine. 

And yet Rovner says the Madagascar Plan wasn’t completely done for: 

ADAM ROVNER: “It had a second life later on under the Nazis, apparently, Adolf Eichmann, as head of his division, got ahold of some version of this report and thought it was a good idea to ship the Jews to Madagascar…Or at least he took credit for thinking it was a good idea during his trial, in Jerusalem and, claimed that he was, a Zionist in a perverse way, because he wanted to ship the Jews of Europe down there, the way that the Nazis were going to ship the Jews down there was, of course, they were going to conquer the British and use the Royal Navy fleet to transport Jews down there and create a kind of, concentrationary universe in Madagascar.”

During World War II, Nazi persecution led to increased urgency and new plans for a Jewish homeland–and old plans resurfacing.

If Madagascar wouldn’t work, perhaps another island was the answer. Enter: Australia.  The Jewish Territorialist Organization had once considered this option–but it gained new life under Isaac Nachman Steinberg and the Freeland League.

Isaac Nachman Steinberg was a Yiddish writer and political figure who had served in Lenin’s first revolutionary government, but in his eyes the revolution failed. He later escaped from Soviet Security forces and even the German Gestapo, who pursued him once he’d already arrived in England. There, Steinberg built up the Freeland League.

As an emissary of that group, he traveled to the Kimberley Region of Australia. Kimberly gave Steinberg and others plenty to get excited about–but a military incursion during World War II halted the plan.

ADAM ROVNER: “Once Japan bombed Darwin, which is the biggest city in the northern part of Australia and not far from the Kimberley region, they realized it was susceptible to Japanese invasion. And even though the governor of Western Australia had approved this idea of resettling tens of thousands of Jews in the Kimberley region, negotiations were underway to lease this land from the owners…that was then, preempted. Well, or at least it was stalled by the bombing.”

A second Australian plan was soon proposed–on the island of Tasmania. Steinberg met with the premier of Tasmania, who supported the idea of putting the Jews in an area a little smaller than Puerto Rico. But a scouting party ended up encountering bad weather and even tragedy there, as one member died of hunger and exposure to the elements.

ADAM ROVNER: “Ultimately, no one ever went to Tasmania. I've seen the folios of the immigrant registers and none. They're all blank. So it's a sad story, but a beautiful one.”

And so ended the official foray into Australia.

Now as we’ve seen, there were plans to create homelands in Africa and Australia, but South America wasn’t off the table either. In 1938, Suriname, known at the time as Dutch Guiana, first entered the picture.

Isaac Nachman Steinberg took inspiration from a semiautonomous eighteenth-century Jewish settlement that once flourished there, as he sought a home for Holocaust survivors. That earlier settlement, translated from Dutch, was called “the Jewish Savannah.” Here’s Laura Almagor.

LAURA ALMAGOR: “I think the Suriname episode is interesting for many reasons…I do think it was probably the most concrete and most successful project that the territorialists were ever engaged with.”

The Dutch government was involved at the highest levels–communicating with Steinberg’s Freeland League, its headquarters now based out of New York. Delegations were sent twice to Suriname’s capital, where they’d been wined and dined, and multiple favorable reports were filed in support of this plan. Throughout 1947 and 1948, the New York Times reported on the progress in Suriname, along with the leftist newspaper PM.

This was happening concurrently with the United Nations vote for partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.

On May 15th, 1948, just one day after the State of Israel declared its independence, 

Freeland League members asked to go to Suriname. In fact, 166 of them, living in a displaced persons camp in Vienna, Austria, pleaded to “assist this great cause” in Suriname.

But American Zionists worried that success in Suriname would weaken support for the nascent State of Israel. The thinking went that these same European Jews formed the exact demographics needed to secure Israel’s own future. 

Prominent Jewish-American leader Stephen S. Wise went so far as to send this note in the midst of the Suriname controversy, critiquing the efforts of Isaac Nachman Steinberg. “I personally believe that Steinberg should be lynched or hanged in quarters, if that would make his lamented demise more certain. He represents a combination of a Messiah complex and anti-Zionism, that appeals, understandably, to many Jews.” Wise of course, was a co-founder of the NAACP, so he knew the gravity of lynching.

Besides, this was also a period of rapid de-colonization, or at least anti-colonialism. And given that Suriname was a Dutch colony with a colonial history that also implicated Jewish people, this resettlement plan grew even more tenuous. Almagor says the group of mostly Eastern European Jewish didn’t realize…

 LAURA ALMAGOR: “That they were negotiating with the colonized who had had a long history of being also colonized by Jews. This was very specific to Dutch Guiana, to Suriname. But Surinam had had a very specific history with Jewish plantation holders, especially in the 17th century.”

So with Dutch colonial rule being shaken off by Suriname, Almagor says the idea of 30,000 Jews arriving to a country with a population of maybe 200,000 total wasn’t greeted particularly fondly.

LAURA ALMAGOR: “So very rapidly territorialism had to reinvent itself from a colonial into a decolonial or even post-colonial movement, because this was how the times were changing…so there we see that Suriname becomes quite an important experience, I think, which shapes territorialism. But we don't see how that then plays out further, because Suriname is really the last project that the Freeland League is actively engaged with.”

In other words, Suriname is the end of the line for the Jewish Territorialist Movement, at least in terms of concrete plans for an alternative Zion. 

The Freeland League goes on to study migration to the young state of Israel. Its members critique Israel’s absorptive capacities and social problems, especially as they relate to North African and Middle Eastern Jews. 

And Territorialists soon turn their focus away from territorial acquisition–and toward preserving Yiddish language and culture. The Freeland League officially changed its name to the League for Yiddish on September 13, 1979, based in New York.

In this current fraught political moment, amidst so much fighting in Israel and Gaza, Almagor does see a semblance of hope, through examining this branch of history.

LAURA ALMAGOR: “By looking at the past, when there was a more multicolored palette to choose from, as a Jewish, politically active individual should inspire some sort of hope for the present and perhaps the future that also now we don't have to choose between black and white, that there could be more colors to choose from.”

As a scholar, Almagor says she’s at times been treated with hostility for studying and speaking on this subject.

LAURA ALMAGOR: “The close connection between Jewish political history and Jewish state building that developed from the moment even before the State of Israel was established, that that close alliance has also made it quite difficult for that wider story that, you know, the reconstruction of what David Myers called the lost Atlantis of Jewish political behavior that has been made virtually impossible for a long time”.

Adam Rovner puts the importance of studying and speaking about Territorialism in a slightly different way.

ADAM ROVNER: “The other answer I would say is that, quite simply, when you learn about historical alternatives, then you understand that today, right now, we also have alternatives…and so I like emphasizing the alternatives that existed in the past and the alternatives that exist to us today in order to create the future we want.”

“Adventures in Jewish Studies” is made possible with generous support from The Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Foundation and from the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation. The executive producer of the podcast is Warren Hoffman. I’m Devan Schwartz, the lead producer for this episode.

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The Association for Jewish Studies is the world’s largest Jewish studies membership organization. It features an annual conference, publications, fellowships and much more for our members. Visit associationforjewishstudies.org to learn more. See you next time on Adventures in Jewish Studies!

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