Magnes in Jerusalem

The opening ceremony of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (pictured above) took place on April 1, 1925. Several thousand invited guests listened to addresses by the Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, as well as Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first president of Israel. Seated silently on the speaker’s platform was Judah Magnes, an iconoclastic American-born rabbi and the founding chancellor of the new university. In a forthcoming biography, Judah L. Magnes: An American Jewish Nonconformist (Syracuse University Press), Daniel P. Kotzin, an assistant professor of social sciences at Medaille College, in Buffalo, N.Y., describes the ideas, debates, and personalities that gave rise to the Hebrew University.

Q: Why Judah Magnes?
A: Judah Magnes in many ways was a unique American Jew. He was a leader of many different kinds of Jewish institutions—rabbi at various synagogues, chair of the New York Kehillah, chancellor of the Hebrew University—yet throughout his life he continuously rebelled against the Jewish establishment. As I conducted research on him, I became fascinated by his role as both a Jewish leader and a critic of Jewish institutions. In many ways, he was a singular figure in American Jewish history. But what I argue is that he was representative of the American Jewish experience because his life story illustrates quite dramatically the contentiousness within the American Jewish experience.

Q: What role did Magnes envision for the Hebrew University?
A: As a one of the founders of the Hebrew University, Magnes conceptualized it as having a powerful role in the development of Jewish culture in British Mandatory Palestine. He believed, for example, that it could establish what he termed “the Jewish point of view” on subjects in the humanities like history, philosophy, and literature. He also hoped that as a Jewish national university, it would enable Jews living in the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine) to become strongly rooted in their Jewish consciousness.

But rather than becoming parochial, he thought a strong Jewish consciousness would lead Jews to promote both Jewish ethics and universal values. Magnes’s vision was also shaped by the tradition of the American service university. Particularly in relation to the sciences, he thought the Hebrew University could be instrumental in helping the Yishuv through such things as malaria research, for example.

Q: You write that Magnes’s concerns about academic freedom led him to insist that the university be independent from the Zionist movement. Tell me about that struggle.
A: Chaim Weizmann, who was the president of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) when the Hebrew University was founded in 1925, wanted the Hebrew university run out of London where the WZO was based; Weizmann and other Zionist leaders wanted the Hebrew University under their control. Magnes, though, fought hard to keep the Hebrew University nonpartisan.

There were several reasons for this, both practical and ideological. First, he was able to gain a lot of financial support for the Hebrew University from wealthy American Jews who were “non-Zionists”—they supported the settlement of Jews in British Mandatory Palestine but opposed Zionist political aims. Second, Magnes believed that the Hebrew University must embrace all elements of Jewish culture. To place one particular Jewish group in control, he feared, would eventually lead to the exclusion of other Jewish groups. In the end, both his insistence on the Hebrew University being inclusive and his ties to wealthy American Jews, convinced the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University to name him the first chancellor. 

Q: Albert Einstein was a prominent influence on the university in its early years. What was Einstein’s role? Why was his relationship with Magnes so contentious?
A: Einstein was on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University. Almost everyone associated with the Hebrew University, including Magnes, understood that Einstein’s affiliation helped establish the reputation of the Hebrew University. From the beginning, though, Einstein issued attacks against Magnes, presenting him as incompetent. But when pressed, Einstein had little evidence to back up his claims, except that Magnes had not hired top scientists to the faculty.

The way I understand the situation, Einstein wanted the Hebrew University to follow the German model, where the university was run by a rector, usually a well-respected scholar. Although he had both a rabbinical degree and a Ph.D., Magnes was not a scholar. From Einstein’s perspective, Magnes was able to serve as chancellor simply because of his ties to American Jewish money. For Einstein, that undermined his conception of who should lead a university. So Einstein started a campaign against Magnes. 

Q: Magnes had an idiosyncratic view of Zionism, which he described as “a nationalism that transcends nationalism.” How out of step was he with other Jewish leaders in pre-state Israel?
A: In his tireless efforts to find a cooperative solution between Zionists and Arabs, Magnes was out of step with Zionist leaders. Others, like David Ben-Gurion, had explored opportunities to work with Arab leaders to create a mechanism for peace. But Arab intransigence, Arab violence, and the rise of Nazi Germany eventually led most Zionist leaders to the conclusion that Arabs were not interested in cooperation.

Magnes felt differently. To him, it did not matter whether the Arabs were interested in peace or not. Jews had an ethical obligation to make a concerted effort to establish a peaceful and cooperative relationship with Arabs. Magnes also had a very American conception of the state as having an obligation to protect equality. This contrasted with most Zionist leaders who felt the state’s primary focus was on protecting the nation.

In his unwavering idealism, in insisting that peaceful relations with Arabs always be the Zionist priority, even with changing historical circumstances such as the Holocaust, Magnes remained outside the Zionist mainstream. However, he nevertheless did force them to debate the issues he raised — to confront such difficult issues as how the concepts of democracy and equality would be applied in relation to Arabs.—Evan R. Goldstein