Elmer Berger (rabbi)
Encyclopedia
Elmer Berger was a Jewish
Reform
rabbi
widely known for his anti-Zionism
. He was the executive director of the American Council for Judaism
from its founding in 1942 until 1955. After this time, he served as a consultant until he was forced to resign in 1968, at which time he founded American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism.
, the son of a Hungarian
-born railroad engineer
and a third generation German-American Jew born in Texas
. As a boy his family attended the Euclid Avenue Temple (Anshe Chesed Congregation) where he was encouraged to study for the rabbinate by Rabbi Louis Wolsey. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Cincinnati
, he was ordained by Hebrew Union College
in 1932. He began his brief career in the ministry in Pontiac, Michigan
before serving in Flint, Michigan
from 1936 to 1942. Berger married Seville Schwartz, the sister of a classmate at Hebrew Union College, in 1933. They divorced in 1946, and shortly thereafter he remarried to Ruth Winegarden, the daughter of a prominent furniture
manufacturer who belonged to the Flint congregation. They were married until Ruth's death in 1979.
, and who hired Berger as its first executive director. In the organization's struggle against the Zionist program adopted at the Biltmore Conference
in May, 1942, Berger increasingly became the movement's public face, particularly with the publication of his book The Jewish Dilemma in 1945, which argued that Zionism
was a surrender to the racial myths about the Jews and that assimilationism
was still the best path for the Jews in the modern world.
Louis Wolsey resigned from the ACJ in 1945, but this did little to slow the activities of Berger and the ACJ, who felt that their chief purpose was to combat the influence of Zionism in the religious life of American Jews. Murray Polner, a historian of Judaism in the USA, has written of the ACJ: By 1948, with the establishment of an independent Israel, the council had earned the enmity of the vast majority of American Jewry, who viewed the group as indifferent, if not hostile, to Jews who had lived through the Holocaust and had nowhere to go. The ACJ is said to have had about 14,000 members in 1948.
in 1955 and his views became increasingly identified by opponents with Arab
and Palestinian
causes.
After the Six Day War in 1967, an event which swept what had previously been an arguably ambivalent American Jewish community with a massive pro-Israel fervor, Berger was widely pilloried, including by other members of the American Council for Judaism, for declaring Israel to be the principal aggressor in the conflict. This ultimately led to Berger's resignation from the Council the following year.
and Sarasota, Florida
.
Elmer Berger died in Sarasota of lung cancer
at the age of 88. Among his direct legacies were his close involvement with the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
and his mentorship of Middle East scholar Norton Mezvinsky
, who wrote a detailed obituary for him concluding:
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
Reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
widely known for his anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
. He was the executive director of the American Council for Judaism
American Council for Judaism
The American Council for Judaism is an organization of American Jews committed to the proposition that Jews are not a nationality but merely a religious group, adhering to the original stated principles of Reform Judaism, as articulated in the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform.The ACJ was founded in June...
from its founding in 1942 until 1955. After this time, he served as a consultant until he was forced to resign in 1968, at which time he founded American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism.
Family background
Berger was born in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, the son of a Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
-born railroad engineer
Railroad engineer
A railroad engineer, locomotive engineer, train operator, train driver or engine driver is a person who drives a train on a railroad...
and a third generation German-American Jew born in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. As a boy his family attended the Euclid Avenue Temple (Anshe Chesed Congregation) where he was encouraged to study for the rabbinate by Rabbi Louis Wolsey. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
, he was ordained by Hebrew Union College
Hebrew Union College
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...
in 1932. He began his brief career in the ministry in Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan named after the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, located within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 59,515. It is the county seat of Oakland County...
before serving in Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
from 1936 to 1942. Berger married Seville Schwartz, the sister of a classmate at Hebrew Union College, in 1933. They divorced in 1946, and shortly thereafter he remarried to Ruth Winegarden, the daughter of a prominent furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
manufacturer who belonged to the Flint congregation. They were married until Ruth's death in 1979.
Political activism
From the beginning, Elmer Berger was squarely in the camp of those Reform rabbis who opposed the Columbus Platformhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Columbus_platform.html of 1937 which moderated the movement's original anti-Zionism and rejection of traditional ritual. It was Berger's mentor, Louis Wolsey, who would in June, 1942 issue a call to convene the American Council for JudaismAmerican Council for Judaism
The American Council for Judaism is an organization of American Jews committed to the proposition that Jews are not a nationality but merely a religious group, adhering to the original stated principles of Reform Judaism, as articulated in the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform.The ACJ was founded in June...
, and who hired Berger as its first executive director. In the organization's struggle against the Zionist program adopted at the Biltmore Conference
Biltmore Conference
The Biltmore Conference, also known by its resolution as the Biltmore Program, was a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." The meeting was held in New York City at the prestigious Biltmore Hotel from May 6...
in May, 1942, Berger increasingly became the movement's public face, particularly with the publication of his book The Jewish Dilemma in 1945, which argued that Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
was a surrender to the racial myths about the Jews and that assimilationism
Jewish assimilation
Jewish assimilation refers to the cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture. Assimilation became legally possible in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.-Background:Judaism forbids the worship of other gods...
was still the best path for the Jews in the modern world.
Controversies
In his book The Jewish Dilemma, he also expressed support of the Soviet Union and ignored the realities of the lack of freedom and persecution of Jews and many others under Stalin. He wrote "..the Jews of the Soviet have enjoyed equality of status and opportunity for only about a quarter of a century. They are the most recently emancipated Jews in the world... Freedom and integration and emancipation flow now through the veins of the Jews." and that "We have seen Jews free and equal under democracy and communism." In respect to Zionism he wrote, "At a single stroke, the Revolution emancipated those very Jews for whom, previously, no solution other than Zionism would be efficacious, according to Zionist spokesmen. Soviet Jews no longer had need of Palestine- or any other refuge. The level of suffering of Russian Jewry... was gone.".Louis Wolsey resigned from the ACJ in 1945, but this did little to slow the activities of Berger and the ACJ, who felt that their chief purpose was to combat the influence of Zionism in the religious life of American Jews. Murray Polner, a historian of Judaism in the USA, has written of the ACJ: By 1948, with the establishment of an independent Israel, the council had earned the enmity of the vast majority of American Jewry, who viewed the group as indifferent, if not hostile, to Jews who had lived through the Holocaust and had nowhere to go. The ACJ is said to have had about 14,000 members in 1948.
Ostracism
Beyond 1948, Elmer Berger continued to write and lecture on behalf of the ACJ, becoming its Executive Vice President. In this position he became increasingly well known and widely despised by the Zionist camp in American Judaism, particularly after he toured the broader Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
in 1955 and his views became increasingly identified by opponents with Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
and Palestinian
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
causes.
After the Six Day War in 1967, an event which swept what had previously been an arguably ambivalent American Jewish community with a massive pro-Israel fervor, Berger was widely pilloried, including by other members of the American Council for Judaism, for declaring Israel to be the principal aggressor in the conflict. This ultimately led to Berger's resignation from the Council the following year.
Later life
In 1968 he founded, with the support of some loyal friends, American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism (AJAZ), which was intended to serve only as his personal vehicle for writing and lecturing. This, he continued to do actively, although in a state of semi-retirement, splitting his time between New YorkNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...
.
Elmer Berger died in Sarasota of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
at the age of 88. Among his direct legacies were his close involvement with the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine, published nine times per year in Washington, D.C., focuses on "news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S...
and his mentorship of Middle East scholar Norton Mezvinsky
Norton Mezvinsky
Norton Mezvinsky is a historian. He is a Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, Connecticut State University and is the president of the International Council for Middle East Studies, Inc., a new academic think tank in Washington, D.C. He has written numerous published books, articles and...
, who wrote a detailed obituary for him concluding:
- "Throughout his adult life Elmer Berger’s definition of Judaism did not vary. In the introduction to his book A Partisan History of Judaism he wrote: “There are those who see Judaism as ‘the religion of the Jewish People.’ This book will not please them. For it indicates, unmistakably, that the origins of Judaism were not in ‘the Jewish people’ and that the best and finest of Judaism today transcends the Jewish people.” At the end of this same book, Elmer Berger succinctly gave his definition: “Judaism is to do justice and to have mercy and to walk humbly with God; and all the rest is commentary and of secondary importance.” It was from this perspective that Elmer Berger carefully and specifically documented his case against Zionism and against the oppressive character of the Zionist state. He called upon the state of Israel to de-Zionize, i.e. to cease being an exclusivist Jewish state granting by law rights and privileges to Jews not granted to non-Jews. He beseeched the state of Israel to develop as a truly democratic state, to be just and merciful to all people and thus to walk humbly with God.
- Elmer Berger was a Jewish patriot".