Letter from Lhasa, number 169. (Raider 2009): Nahum Goldmann
by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
[Edited by] Raider, M. A., Nahum Goldmann. Statesman Without a State, State University of New York Press and Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel at Tel Aviv University, Albany, N.Y., U.S.A., 2009.
(Raider 2009).
Mark A. Raider
Goldmann was a prominent Zionist leader and, at the same time, a harsh critic of the Israeli State:
“The Israelis, he said, suffer from the Jewish weakness of being unable to distinguish between matters important from matters less so. [...] He was dubious about the democratic structures of Israel: in Ben-Gurion’s time, he wrote, Israel was formally a democracy, but in fact it was a regime more dictatorial than many totalitarian countries. Israeli politicians and the Israeli party system was a favorite aim of his barbs, for evident reasons. Except in times of war, Goldmann wrote, the loyalty of Israeli politicians is more to their parties than to the state.”
(Raider 2009, p. 43)
Not casually, his Zionism was cosmopolitan and anarchist.
“There can be no doubt that Goldmann’s identification with the diaspora was profoundly rooted in his sense of Jewish history; it was part of his basic Weltanschauung. On the basis of a 1980 interview, Raphael Patai reports on Goldmann’s musings to the effect that love of Zion throughout the long exile could be likened to that love relationship in which the essential is not the fulfilment but the yearning, because the lovers are in dread of facing disappointment. 28 One cannot but agree with Patai’s impression that, in the final analysis, underlying Goldmann’s global concept of the Jewish people, there resided an emotional identification with the diaspora “somewhat stronger than his solidarity with Israel.” One measure of this is evident from his having chosen never to become a permanent resident of Israel (although he acquired an apartment in Jerusalem) and from his declining a position, even a very high one, in the Israeli government.”
(Raider 2009, p. 71)
The book collects 13 essays, in addition to the introduction. They examine different aspects of the personality and actions of Goldmann and of his role in Jewish and world history.
[Edited by] Raider, M. A., Nahum Goldmann. Statesman Without a State, State University of New York Press and Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel at Tel Aviv University, Albany, N.Y., U.S.A., 2009.
