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Jews Against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942-1948 by Thomas A. Kolsky. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. 269 pages. $39.95, hardcover.
Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused ye to be carried away captives and pray unto the Lord for that city, for in the peace thereof ye have peace.
--Jeremiah 29:5-7
To the Jews as a nation we grant nothing; to the Jews as men we grant all.
--Clermont-Tonnerre, delegate to the French National Assembly
The historian and economist Murray Rothbard has noted that it is a mistake to think, as we often do, that truth always triumphs. However appealing the thought, there is no reason to believe that valid knowledge is inevitably recognized and carried forward. Knowledge is the product of human minds, and human beings are often lured from the truth of error, passion, and interest. Thus, it can, and too frequently does, become lost and buried in the past. The growth of knowledge is not guaranteed.
There are two practical lessons in this: First, the dominant point of view can be mistaken; and, second, excursions into the past to sift through the forgotten thoughts of neglected thinkers can therefore be worthwhile.
We may view Thomas Kolsky's book as just such an excursion. He brings back from the past an exciting story of a group of courageous men who were largely vilified and who lost. The American Council for Judaism (ACJ) was founded in 1942 to oppose Zionism as a corruption of the Jewish religion and to prevent the creation of a Jewish state. That it failed on both counts there can be no doubt. Why then bother with it? Because the jeremiads of the Council contained warnings of dangers that have come to pass, and thus what underlay those warnings may be of value today. Applying the Rothbardian principle, the existential failure of the ACJ tells us nothing of the validity of its principles.
Kolsky has written a dispassionate yet gripping history of this star-crossed mission. He writes, "My basic attitude toward the American Council for Judaism has been that its philosophy is as legitimate as that of the Zionists. Both Zionism and Jewish anti-Zionism are products of the powerful historical forces that have shaped the...