Political Zionism

One of the spectators at the Dreyfus trial was a man in his early thirties by the name of Theodore Herzl. He was the foreign correspondent for a Jewish-owned paper in Vienna called, The New Free Press. He had been their Paris correspondent for a number of years.

His presence at the trial would not only change him forever, but Jewry as well.

A Committed Assimilationist

Herzl was born in Hungary into an assimilated family. He had little knowledge of Jewish tradition, even though his grandfather apparently had been a traditional, observant Jew. Ideologically, Herzl was fully committed to the assimilation of Jews in Western European civilization. He believed that the only viable hope for the Jewish people was that Europe would slowly become more and more liberal, allow Jews to assimilate into their society and that the Jews would oblige them by assimilating.

It is not even possible to say that Herzl was a follower of Haskalah, because such followers had a strong Jewish background and were committed to some type of Jewish culture. Herzl was not even committed to a Jewish culture. He was committed to being a Viennese.

Misplaced Optimism

In Herzl’s view, life was going to get better and better for the Jews in Europe. He is a perfect example of 19^th century man. The great inventions and technological advances of the Industrial Revolution convinced 19^th century man that it was only a matter of time before science would unlock all the secrets of nature and the universe, and that all the great social problems which long plagued civilization would be solved as well.

By the middle of the 20^th century, educated people were aware that the optimism of the previous century was seriously misplaced. For every door opened there were five more closed behind it that no one even knew existed. By the late the 20^th century more than 100 million people had been killed by their own governments or war. That was almost the entire population of the world at the time of the Roman Empire. Therefore, modern man was jaded and cynical; he hopes for the best but expects the worst, preferring most of all not to think about it too much, settling for sports, television and mindless entertainment.

In the world of the 19^th century, educated masses were full of buoyant optimism. Theodore Herzl embodied this optimism. It was the part of the Austrian culture into which he was born. The benign Franz Joseph had been the emperor for 70 years. For all anyone knew, the relative stability and peace was going to continue that way forever. No one saw what was coming – that the century ahead would be the world’s more horrendous and bloodiest.

One of the great Talmudic scholars of the generation was a rabbi in Latvia, Rabbi Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk. With profound vision, he wrote in his biblical commentary, “Woe to those who say that Berlin is Jerusalem. God will bring upon them a whirlwind.” In other words, they will be beset by such a terrible series of events that they will be forced to admit their Jewishness. In the end, their tragedy will be that they will have suffered all the pangs and punishments of being a Jew without realizing the rewards of being a Jew.

It was a poignant, sad but true prophecy regarding assimilated Jewry in Europe. In the next 50 years it would come to pass with such vehemence that no one at the time would have believed it. This and other signs will fall on deaf ears because it would be so incomprehensible.

Herzl’s Transformation

Herzl arrived at the Dreyfus trial and was exposed to the virulent anti-Semitism that existed in Paris. He could not believe the shouts of the mob, the open hatred, the cartoons in the newspapers, the comments from the political leaders, etc. Paris was supposed to epitomize progress, modernity and cosmopolitanism. The French Revolution had been founded on the motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” It was the cradle of civilization. How could such a thing happen in Paris of all places?

As often happens such events shock Jews into an existential exploration of who they are. If the Dreyfus trial would never have happened, Herzl would have remained a famous correspondent without having any affect whatsoever on Jewish life. But, outside forces such as anti-Semitism thrust upon Jews a bitter realization. Then the choice becomes black or white. One drops his Jewish identity forever – converting or assimilating completely — or one is shocked into taking up his Jewish identity with a greater fervor than Jews brought taking their Jewishness for granted.

Herzl never became an observant Jew or a Jewish scholar. However, the Dreyfus trial created within him a single-mindedness toward what he called the Jewish problem.

“Normalizing”

Herzl’s reaction to the Dreyfus trial was instantaneous. He said that the Jews will never find a cure for anti-Semitism unless they “normalize” their situation. By “normalize” he meant that Jews needed their own state, army, flag, diplomats, etc. – Jews had to be a nation like all other nations.

Unfortunately, he also predicted that once that happened anti-Semitism would disappear. We today — long after the establishment of the State of Israel and the “normalization” of the Jewish people in Herzl’s terms — are painfully aware how off the mark he was about that.

In any event, with great optimism he established a platform upon which political Zionism was founded. The first part of that platform was that the Jewish people would have Jewish state on a piece of land somewhere in the world. Herzl did not necessarily say that it should be the Land of Israel. We will see that he was ready to take Uganda.

Second, it did not have to have a Jewish culture; Western culture would be acceptable. Herzl never dreamed that the language his future state would be Hebrew. To him, whatever language was dominant at the time would be the language of his new Jewish state. He had in mind German or French.

In short, his idea of the Jewish state was not very Jewish. Nevertheless, to him just having a Jewish state would solve the problem of anti-Semitism. It would be a place where downtrodden Jews from anywhere in the world could emigrate to and find refuge.

Political vs. Practical Zionism

In 1896, Herzl published a pamphlet which electrified the Jewish world. Written in German, it was entitled, “The Jewish State.” In it he called for the creation of a Jewish state and the creation of an organization that would bring Jews there. He also called for the Jews throughout the world to lobby with the great powers to grant the Jews “a charter to have our state.”

There was a great difference between political Zionism and practical Zionism. The former felt that the only way the country would become Jewish was through a charter granted by the British Empire or a body like the League of Nations. Somebody outside the Jewish people had to grant them the right to have a country. That was the goal of political Zionism, beginning with Herzl.

Practical Zionism, who included among its adherents David Ben-Gurion, phrased it as follows: “It matters not what the Gentiles say. It only matters what the Jews do.”

He said that Palestine would become Jewish if enough Jews went there and started developing the land. It was not dependent upon having a charter. Therefore, the practical Zionists felt that the emphasis upon diplomacy and finding favor with governments was misplaced. All the efforts, money and talent should be poured into the practical up-building of the country.

This created a bitter feud within the Zionist movement. The State of Israel was created a little by both. It was created by a United Nations Resolution, but it was also created by the fact that there were 600,000 Jews living there who had built an agricultural and industrial base, as well as an army.

The First Zionist Congress

In 1897, Herzl convened the first World Zionist Congress to discuss how to implement this plan of obtaining a Jewish state and bringing Jews there.

Herzl opened the proceedings with the following declaration, “Today, I have founded the Jewish state. It will take you 50 years to see it.”

He was pretty close.

From the onset, control of the Zionist Congress lay in the hands of Western, assimilated Jews like Herzl. But the masses of delegates and the support for the movement was mostly from Eastern European Jews.

One has to understand that the Zionist movement was a minority within the Jewish people, and it was opposed by very strange bedfellows. First, it was opposed by the Reform, who looked at it as a terrible event. They were the most anti-Zionist of all, because they felt that somehow it compromised their position as good Germans or good Frenchmen or good Englishmen and raised the specter of dual loyalty. It was a frightening thing to them.

The second group that opposed Zionism was the Bund, the Jewish left-wing labor unions. The Bund in the 1890s and early 1900s was committed to world communism and the victory of the proletariat. They saw themselves as saving the whole world, whereas the Zionist Jews were worried about a little country. Therefore, they opposed political Zionism very strongly.

The third group that generally opposed Zionism was a large section of Orthodox Jewry. The majority opposed it for two main reasons. First, they felt that somehow it was a desecration in the belief of a supernatural coming of the Messiah. Second, they felt that nothing good could come out of a movement headed by assimilated, secular and anti-religious people.

Indeed, the secular leadership had a great deal to do with the alienation of most of Orthodox Jewry from the Zionist movement. Also, by this time, the Haskalah had taken control of the Lovers of Zion movement.

Even though the majority of religious Jews opposed the Zionist movement, a significant minority favored it. In 1902 Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines along with a few rabbis of Eastern Europe and even some Chassidic rabbis joined together to form what later would be called the Mizrachi Party, which was the religious Zionist section of the Zionist movement. They never were powerful enough within the Zionist movement to matter. But they were powerful enough that a religious point of view was always heard.

Herzl and Uganda

Herzl had a short and tragic life. He died in 1904 at the age of 44. He evidently had a weak heart and suffered from rheumatic fever.

In 1903, the year before he died, he met the Kaiser in Palestine in hopes of obtaining his help. When Herzl could not secure from the Kaiser the aid he hoped for, he spent about $50,000 in bribes to get an appointment with the Sultan of Turkey. However, he quickly saw that he wasn’t going to succeed with the Sultan either. Therefore, he turned to England. From then on, almost all the efforts of the Zionist movement would focus on England.

In 1903, the British foreign office proposed to give Herzl the territory of Uganda for a Jewish state. Herzl accepted and brought it to the Zionist Congress that year, the last congress he would attend. A very bitter battle ensued. Herzl wanted a Jewish state; whether it was in Palestine or not was secondary. The Eastern European Zionists wanted Palestine and nothing else.

Herzl said that he would resign if it was turned down. The Eastern European Jews opposed it to the end. Herzl won by a few votes and then died shortly thereafter. With his death the option of Uganda also died.

Despite his death, and conflicts from within his movement, political Zionism continued to gain momentum. It changed the face of Jewry. Its birth is really the beginning of the story of the Jews in the 20^th century.

Dawn of the Century and Jewish Despair

The period from 1900 to 1914, which marks the last time Europe would know peace for almost 50 years, was tumultuous for the Jewish people.

From 1880 onward we see a continually mounting tide of anti-Semitism both in Eastern and Western Europe. This tide of anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Second World War and the destruction of European Jewry by Hitler, did not start with Hitler. It built upon 50 to 70 years of official government sanctioned anti-Semitism. In this new, racially-based anti-Semitism Jews had no place in European society. They were not to be tolerated under any conditions.

Jewish life was on the verge of destruction. The Dreyfus trial, the beginnings of the Zionist movement, vast emigration and the secularization of a large portion of the Jewish people all were motivated by the basic underlying force of anti-Semitism.

Kishinev Pogrom

There are two incidents that happened in Russia before the First World War that had a profound impact upon the Jewish people. The first was the infamous Kishinev pogrom of April 1903.

Kishinev is a town about 50 miles northwest of Odessa in Bessarabia. Around the turn of the century it had a Jewish population of about 25,000, which was large by Jewish standards. The Russian government had for many years pursued an official-unofficial policy of fomenting pogroms. It was unofficial in the sense that the government did not do any of the rampaging directly. It was official, however, in the sense that the police and the army would come into a town and announce that they were leaving for the next few days. That was a signal to the anti-Semites and thugs that they could destroy and plunder Jewish property and attack and murder Jews with impunity and without fear of consequences.

Sometimes the Russian authorities let it rage for a few hours and sometimes for a few days. Kishinev raged for three days. Golda Meir said that her first memory in life was the horrific pogrom of Kiev when her upstairs neighbor, a Jew, was nailed to the door of his apartment.

The Kishinev pogrom awakened in the world a reaction that Russia did not expect.

Compared to the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, the number of Jews killed (142) and wounded (1500) in the Kishinev pogrom – to say nothing of Jewish businesses destroyed (2000) — may not seem particularly large. But this was the beginning of the age of photographs. The Vietnam War was an excellent example of how the media affected policy. The fact that it was televised into every home eventually forced the political and diplomatic withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam. In a similar way, the photographs of the Kishinev massacre were telegraphed and subsequently published in all the newspapers of the world. They drove home in graphic detail the terrible brutality of the Russians and ignited a stinging international reaction against them.

The Czar claimed the government had nothing to do with it and that he was going to investigate it. Only fools believed him. In actuality, no one was ever punished for the Kishinev pogrom. No item of Jewish property was ever returned. No compensation was ever paid to any of the victims.

The President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, officially protested to the Russian government over its behavior. This was the first time the United States ever did something like that. The catalyst for his protest was the growing influence of Jews in American political and economic life. Now there was a large Jewish population in the state of New York and Roosevelt was aware of that. Though we can assume he was sincerely disgusted at Russian behavior, to some extent he responded to pressure of Jews in America.

Three Reactions

The Kishinev massacre convinced the Jews in Russia more than ever that there really was no future and no hope for them there. The only hope lay in three areas.

To the secular Jews, the only hope was to overthrow the Russian government. Kishinev made more Jews revolutionaries than anything else. It wasn’t so much that the Jews believed in revolution, but that they knew that under the Czar there was no hope and things would never change. In order for the Jewish situation to change someone had to get rid of the Czar, his autocratic government and break the power of the Russian Orthodox Church. The only ones prepared to do so were the left-wing socialists, communists, anarchists and revolutionaries. That was their platform.

Therefore, Jews became revolutionaries in great numbers during both of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. They were disproportionately represented. Though about 1% of the Russian population they were 15-20% of the revolutionaries. And in the leadership echelon they were even more disproportionately represented. There was a time that the higher echelon of the Bolshevik party in Russia was over one-third Jewish. That naturally brought about the other reaction that accused the Bolsheviks of being Jews and vice-versa.

The second reaction to Kishinev was the enormous strengthening of the Zionist movement. The movement may have originally been conceived, supported and led by Western European Jews but its membership came from Eastern European Jews. These secularized Jews looked at the Zionist movement with religious fervor. In effect, they took the belief and enthusiasm that Jews had in Judaism and transferred it to the cause of Zionism. They served it with the same dedication, tenacity and spirit. That is how they stood against all odds.

After Kishinev, the numbers behind the Zionist movement exploded. All over Eastern Europe Zionist cells grew. They even absorbed the whole Haskalah membership. A great deal of the Jewish socialist phenomenon was absorbed into the Zionist movement, though hardcore Jewish socialists like the Bund remained anti-Zionist to the bitter end, because they thought it was a diversion from the revolution that would overthrow the Czar and bring the rule of the proletariat to the entire world.

There was also now a strong push for religious Zionism, including great Chassidic rabbis. Most of the early religious Zionists, in fact, came from Chassidic backgrounds. Many great Chassidic rabbis, even if they did not pay it public support gave it private support.

The third response to Kishinev was the acceleration of the already accelerated pace of immigration of Jews to the United States. The situation in Russia was so desperate that parents sent children alone or husbands left their wives and family to travel to the New World in the hope of arranging for them to eventually come too.

The general, overall response to Kishinev can be summarized in one word: fatalism. Many Jews felt that nothing would help. All of the hopes of the 18^th and 19^th centuries for the betterment of the situation of the Jewish people were dashed. Therefore, a large element of the Jewish people became fatalistic — passive and willing to accept what was coming. They were not prepared to leave — for all sorts of reasons, including philosophic, religious, economic or physical. They were going to hang on no matter what and hope against hope that somehow they would ride out the storm.

Beilus

Compounding the fatalism was an event that occurred in 1911: the Beilus trial. It was not quite as famous as the Dreyfus trial, which began in 1894, but it was close. And in terms of infamy and the revelation of how deeply anti-Semitic the “civilized” world was it was comparable.

Before Passover in 1911 a non-Jewish child in Kiev disappeared. Unfortunately, children have been disappearing mysteriously since time immemorial. When non-Jewish children disappeared in the Middle Ages, especially before Passover in the spring, it often meant trouble for the Jews. They were blamed for kidnapping him in order to use his blood in a Passover ritual. By the 19^th century, most people – Jew and non-Jew — thought that this type of xenophobic behavior was a thing of the past. It could not happen in enlightened Europe.

But it did… in 1911 – and the Jewish scapegoat was a tailor named Mendel Beilus. A neighbor said that he saw him take the child. The authorities accused him of killing the child to use the blood to bake Passover matzah (unleavened bread).

In 1840, there had been a blood libel in Damascus. Syrian Jews were tortured and killed. There the Russian government protested to the Turks, telling them that it was a terrible thing how a civilized country could behave in such a way. Now they were the perpetrators.

The trial took place in 1913 amidst much publicity. The Russian government intended to use the trial as an example how they dealt with enemies, and reveal for all the power and truth of the Czar, the Romanoffs and the Russian autocratic system. But there was a great liberal element in Russia, and they rose to the defense of Beilus. Furthermore, the Dreyfus trial was still fresh in everyone’s mind and there was a cry throughout the world, creating a world climate of public opinion that put pressure on the Russian authorities. In the end, the court had to admit that it had no evidence to prove the guilt of Beilus and he was freed.

It was a terrible defeat for the Czarist government. But it was an even greater blow for the Jewish people. If such an anti-Semitic accusation could happen in 1913, then they were no better off than in the Middle Ages.

Pessimism

That is how the Jewish world looked immediately before the First World War. There was tremendous pessimism. In the pessimism, Jews gave up on many things. They gave up on their religion and they gave up on themselves.

The few idealists who remained were either very pious Jews, very secular revolutionaries or the Zionists. However, the great masses didn’t really have a commitment to any of these groups. They were drifting along without any direction. Their commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people was aptly described as a mile wide and an inch deep.

The coming storm that would be called the First World War would wash away those with shallow roots and change the Jewish world in Europe irrevocably.

The End of the Hasmoneans, The Rise of Rome

The decline of the Hasmoneans coincided with the rise of Rome, but it wasn’t coincidence, for the once great Jewish family had become a shell of its holy roots.

In the year 67 BCE, Queen Salome Alexendra (also known as Queen Shelomtzion) died. With her death, the dynasty of the Hasmoneans began a steady decline. Over the next 20-25 years it would fall apart completely.

Queen Salome left two sons: Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Hyrcanus was weak, but as the older son had been appointed the High Priest during his mother’s life and then became King after her death. Aristobulus had all of the charisma and fierce, leadership qualities of his father, Alexander Jannaeus. However, he also had a great deal of the negative qualities, including being very headstrong, opinionated, temper-prone and violent. And his attitudes were more in line with the Sadducees than the Pharisees.

As long as their mother was in charge, she kept the lid on the pot, so to speak. However, the moment she died the two were literally at each others’ throats for the right to succession.

War… Again

In 65 BCE, after feeble attempts at an accommodation, Aristobulus army attacked Hyrcanus’. They battled outside of Jericho. Aristobulus won and captured Hyrcanus. As terms of the ransom for his release, Hyrcanus agreed to relinquish the throne.

The agreement lasted about six weeks.

It was undermined by an advisor of Hyrcanus named Antipater, an Idumean convert who would become the father of Herod. A couple of generations earlier the Idumeans had been forcibly converted, against the will of the rabbis, and now it would come back to haunt the Jewish people.

Antipater was as talented an administrator as he was ambitious. He is the one who really stirred the pot and convinced Hyrcanus that he had a chance to become the king again. Always scheming, he organized Hyrcanus’ army – but one that was loyal to him, bringing in mercenaries and organizing the offer corps out of his own Idumean compatriots.

Antipater then led this army against Aristobulus, routed it and forced the remnants to retreat to the Temple area. The rest of Jerusalem and the entire country now came under the domain of Hyrcanus.

The Pig that Shook the World

The Western Wall (or Wailing Wall) is one of the most famous symbols of Judaism today. However, it is only a remnant of a much larger wall that surrounded the courtyard of the Temple.

On the Temple Mount itself was the Fortress of Antonius, which was a virtually impregnable fortress. Whoever controlled it controlled the Temple area.

Aristobulus and the remnants of his army now took up residence there. As long as they held this fortress they were capable of repelling all attacks and holding out for a long time.

As strange as it seems, despite their animosity toward each other, the two sides made an agreement to make sure that the twice-daily sacrifice was offered. Every day, the army on the outside would send up the necessary sheep to be slaughtered. The priests inside the Temple, who were neutral, continued doing all their daily deeds.

The siege lasted months and showed no sign of ending. One day, an advisor convinced Hyrcanus to send up a pig instead of a sheep. The Talmud[1] said that when the pig scraped its hooves against the walls of the Temple the Land of Israel shook for 400 miles. It was one of the low points in Jewish history. The Hasmoneans had initiated their rebellion when the Greeks forced Jews to a sacrifice pig to their gods and now their descendants were killing each other and sending up a pig to the Temple!

Enter Rome

This led the entrance of Rome into Jewish life, one of the major turning points in Jewish history.

It came in on the sword of a General by the name of Pompey, who in his modesty called himself, “Pompey the Great.” In the year 70 BCE he conquered Spain for Rome. He then came east and conquered Greece. He then came further east and conquered the Parthians (who inhabited modern-day Turkey and Iran). And then he turned his attention south to the Mediterranean basin.

He was a talented, ruthless general, as well as an extremely shrewd man. He was the first Roman leader to understand that Rome could not successfully control the Middle East if it did not control Judea. Even if Judea was merely a neutral independent it would serve as a wedge between the Northern Empire (Syria) and the Southern Empire (Egypt). Therefore, he looked for a way to get himself in power in Judea.

Ideally, he did not want to do it through war, because the Jews – the Hasmoneans/Maccabees – had a fearsome reputation. The Romans referred to the Jews as “porcupines.” Just as a porcupine is an animal that even great predators avoid, so too the Jews. Even if you ate it you would be sorry. Therefore, Pompey wanted to control the Jews without somehow going to war. The civil war between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus presented a golden opportunity. It was the key that would allow Rome into Jerusalem.

Of course, once Rome was allowed in it would never leave. Its influence would grow exponentially over next century until the Jews would have enough and mount a rebellion.

Pompey’s Compromise

In the year 64 BCE, Pompey appeared in Damascus. The Jews sent three delegations: first Hyrcanus and then Aristobulus. Each argued why Rome should side with them. A third group was sent by the Sanhedrin, who told Pompey to ignore both groups; let the Sanhedrin, the rabbis, run the country. All three groups apparently agreed that some type of Roman intervention would be welcomed.

Pompey took his time responding. In the year 63 BCE, he arrived in Jerusalem. Hyrcanus and his army promptly withdrew. Aristobulus surrendered and was sent along with his family to Rome where they were degraded in the Roman processional triumph. Nevertheless, his forces fought on against Pompey and Hyrcanus. However, after two months the Romans broke through their stronghold and massacred some 12,000 of the Jews defending the Temple.

According to Josephus, Pompey stepped into the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum of the Temple. However, he did not take any booty or otherwise interrupt the Temple service. The next day he withdrew the Roman army from the Temple Mount and returned it to the authority of the Jews.

Nevertheless, for all practical purposes, Judea was now under Roman domination.

Pompey let Hyrcanus remain the High Priest and even call himself king, but the title was nominal. Before he left, he had the walls of Jerusalem leveled, making it defenseless. He also imposed harsh taxes. Six years later, in 57 BCE, Pompey appointed a governor in Syria (Gabinius) who would have ultimate control of the affairs in Judea. This cemented the fact that Hyrcanus was king only in name, not in deed.

His work done in Jerusalem, Pompey went home to Rome expecting to be made emperor.

Enter Julius Caesar

However, he had strong competition for the job from a man by the name of Julius Caesar, who was a great general in his own right. He did in the West what Pompey did in the East, subduing the peoples in what is today England, France and the Rhineland of Germany.

These two great Roman generals had an agreement between them: Rome would be run by a Triumvirate, i.e. a committee of three. However, the Triumvirate did not last. After five years it fell apart, which left Pompey and Caesar jockeying for control.

The Rome Senate backed Pompey, but Caesar boldly marched his army across the Rubicon, the river that marked the boundary between Italy proper and its provinces to the north. Roman law forbade a Roman army to cross the river. In doing so, Caesar was committing an act of war.[2]

As Caesar’s army entered Rome, Pompey and the Senate fled for their lives. Caesar declared himself emperor and pursued Pompey all the way to Egypt. Once there, he committed a rare tactical blunder and found himself and his army besieged in Alexandria by Pompey and his allies.

Hyrcanus had been an official ally of Pompey. However, the shrewd Antipater now convinced Hyrcanus to switch sides and declare his allegiance to Caesar. They then committed over 3,000 Jewish soldiers to an expeditionary force that invaded Egypt and helped raise the siege of Alexandria.

Thus, when the Roman civil war ended in Julius Caesar’s complete victory Hyrcanus was in a fortuitous position, and on the verge of realizing his lifelong dream of becoming the king.

Caesar Ends the Hasmonean Era

Indeed, Caesar showed the Jews his gratitude for their help. He revoked the harsh decrees and burdensome taxation imposed by Pompey. He also allowed the walls and fortifications of Jerusalem to be rebuilt and restored Jaffa as well as a number of other coastal cities to Jewish rule.

He even gave Hyrcanus the position of High Priest. However, in a surprise move he did not give him the title of king. Even if he had it would have been in name only, because he gave the real power a Roman Legate or Procurator who would make all the crucial decisions in the land of Judea. That person was none other than Antipater, the scheming non-Jewish general of Hyrcanus’ army! For all practical purposes, the real power now lay with Antipater.

This is how the rulership of the country passed from the Hasmoneans to people who claimed to be Jewish but were not Jewish, people who would do the bidding of the Romans. Caesar’s transfer of power to Antipater was in effect the end of the Hasmonean Era.

The Sages on Politics

In perfect hindsight, we can wonder at the naiveté – the stupidity – of Hyrcanus and the other protagonists in this real life soap opera. Having learned early on what it meant to get the Romans involved in local politics how could they have continued to do so?

However, Hyrcanus was under the spell of Antipater, as well as blinded by his own lust for power. Because he wanted to be the king at all costs he made one tactical error after another.

The two greatest Jewish scholars of the time, Shamaya and Avtalyon, commented obliquely on the matter in their exhortations to ethical behavior in Judaism’s primary volume on the subject, Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot).

Shamaya said (ibid. 1:10): “Hate power and do not make yourself known to the government.” In other words, keep a low profile, because what is destroying the Jewish people is the lust for power, as demonstrated by its political leaders.

Avtalyon said (ibid. 1:11): “Rabbis, be careful with your words. Perhaps you will be exiled….” Rabbis, he warned, do not make statements on political matters. Your words will become known to the ruling power, you will be sent into exile and your disciples with be leaderless and come to ruin.

These two cryptic statements reveal the tenor of the times. In essence, the rabbinic approach was to withdraw from political activity when one could do nothing about it anyway. The focus should be on the root of the problem, which was the lust for power. If those in power were beyond hope, then implant in future generations lessons that would preempt the horrible excesses caused by hubris and lust for power.

In so doing, the great Torah leaders Shamaya and Avtalyon transcended the issues of their days and provided eternal lessons that echo in the ears of all generations down to our days. As we will see, Shamaya and Avtalyon’s disciple Hillel took their approach to the next level.

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[1] See Sotah 49b and Menachos 64b, and Josephus; cf. Baba Kamma 82b.

[2] That is why the popular idiom, “Crossing the Rubicon” means to pass a point of no return.

Sadducees and Pharisees

The seeds of strife planted earlier took root as the Hasmonean era produced sacrilegious heirs and pitted Jew vs. Jew in a bloody civil war.

The Sadducees, who were the heirs of the Hellenists, formed a very potent and powerful force in Jewish society, but they subscribed to a philosophy that was essentially non-Jewish, to a Greek view of the world.

The rabbis did not take it lying down. They understood that if the Sadducees prevailed there would be no Jewish people.

Throughout Jewish history there have always been groups who arose to espouse some type of non-Jewish “Jewish” philosophy — and they have always been met with a great deal of antagonism. On the surface, it looked like the establishment had no tolerance for them. However, that would be a bad over-simplification, because these groups represented an ideological threat that put at risk the very survival of the Jewish people.

The Jewish people could not have survived under the reign of the Sadducees. Indeed, the Sadducees themselves would cease to exist after the Roman persecution. The only thing of theirs that has survived is that which was recorded by the Pharisees. It was as though an unseen hand came and erased them.

In the final analysis, theirs was not an ideology connected to anything eternal. Rather it was a non-ideology couched in flowery words and pledging allegiance to some vague idea they called Judaism, changeable to whatever prevailing winds of culture would help them maintain and consolidate their status, wealth, power and pleasure.

We will see this story repeated over and over and over again in Jewish history. We will also see that the “race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the mighty.” It will always look like Traditional Judaism will be on the way out. Yet, somehow they will be the only ones who will survive.

Alexander Jannaeus

John Hyrcanus came under the influence of the Sadducees in the latter part of his reign and the government of Israel officially became a Sadducee government. He removed members of the Sanhedrin who were Pharisees and replaced them with Sadducees. He also did away many of the rabbinic ordinances and replaced them with the ways of the Sadducees – and imposing them with a police force and the army.

He died in the year 104 BCE. One of his two sons was Alexander Jannaeus (or Alexander Yannai), a charismatic, fierce warrior, as handsome as the sun – with an equivalent amount of self-confidence (and arrogance) to go around.

However, he was not the oldest son. That was Judah Aristobulus (named in memory of Judah the Maccabee). Nice and soft-spoken, he married Salome Alexandra (called Shelomtzion[1] in the Talmud). Her brother was Rabbi Simon son of Shatah (Shimon ben Shatach), who was not only king, but according to ancient Jewish law he had the obligation to marry the widowed wife ofthe leader of the Pharisees, and not about to let the Jewish people go under. For the next 30 years, in fact, he will fight the battle for the preservation of the Jewish people at great personal risk.

Judah Aristobulus succeeded to the throne and had his brother arrested and put in prison. However, he became ill a year later and died.

In one day, Alexander Jannaeus went from prison to the throne. Moreover, according to Jewish law he had the obligation to marry the widowed wife of his childless brother, which he fulfilled, and thus Salome became his queen. In actuality, it was a politically expedient move for him, because it legitimized his claim to the kingship and averted civil war. He was now officially installed as King and High Priest.

Until his time, even though the Hasmoneans served as both King and High Priest they were sensitive to the problems raised thereby. Publicly they went out of their way to avoid calling themselves kings, even though for all intents and purposes they were. However, Alexander Jannaeus had no such inhibitions. One of the first things he did was make a gaudy crown and made sure to wear it all the time.

The Global Situation

Besides a great warrior, Alexander Jannaeus was a cunning politician. He needed it because the region was in a very volatile state, even for the Middle East. He took advantage of this turmoil to build an empire for the Jewish people.

The first decade-and-a-half of his reign were years of endless war. First, he pushed back the Nabateans in the south. Then he conquered the entire Gaza Strip, which he populated with Jews. He also conquered virtually every coastal city except Ashkelon, which remained in Greek hands. North of Ashkelon till what is today Haifa was likewise controlled by the Jewish state – with the exception of the city of Caesarea, where a Roman legion was stationed.

To the north of Jerusalem, he conquered the Golan and established Jewish settlements there, which lasted continuously for almost 600 years. In the east, he conquered most of what is today Jordan; Jewish control was on both sides of the Jordan River. He was also the first one to fortify the fortress of Masada.

He lost a few wars along the way, too, and came close to complete annihilation. However, he was a wily, clever and strong-minded person. It took time, but eventually he carved out a small Jewish empire in the region.

Why He Was Unpopular

Despite his military success, he was not popular among the Pharisees, who represented the majority of the people. First, he was a coarse, arrogant person. Second, his campaigns led to a lot of spilled Jewish blood. In Sparta or Rome, parents expected their children to die in battle. Indeed, that was the highest honor. The Spartans would give a son a shield and say, “Come back with it or on it.” However, Jews do not share that value. The constant drain, both in money and blood, made Alexander Jannaeus very unpopular among the masses.

Another reason for his unpopularity was that in order to pursue the war he brought in many non-Jewish mercenaries. This was common in the ancient world. The abundance of these mercenary soldiers in the Land of Israel had a demoralizing effect, because with the foreign soldiers came foreign gods and foreign behaviors.

Thirdly, the Idumeans – who had been converted forcibly, against the will of the rabbinic authorities, as we discussed – began to rise in the ranks and became the officer class in the Jewish army. Thus, the Hasmonean army had a disproportionate amount of Idumeans in positions of leadership.

All of this brought about a great deal of negativism in Jewish society – and especially from the Pharisees, led by Simon son of Shetah, who was not bashful to tell Alexander Jannaeus that he was wrong. Because of that, he slowly but surely became an enemy of the Pharisees. He felt that they were the spearhead of the group who did not love him. Everyone wants to be loved, even a ruler.

The Situation Comes to a Head

There were a number of matters that brought the situation to a head.

The most horrific example took place on Sukkot, one of the pilgrimage festivals when hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the land flocked to Jerusalem and fill the Temple courtyard. During the height of the most joyous part of the festival, Alexander Jannaeus — as the High Priest — performed a key part of the ceremony in an openly Sadducee way. It was an intentionally provocative public declaration on behalf of the Sadducees. He well knew that his audience was overwhelmingly made up of Pharisees.

They responded by pelting him with the citron fruits used as part of the observance of the festival. In his wrath, he ordered his non-Jewish mercenary soldiers into the Temple to slaughter at will and they butchered 6,000 Jews that day. Josephus, in recounting it more than a century and a half later, recounts how the troughs in the Temple ran red with blood.

Uncivil Civil War

It was now open civil war.

Alexander Jannaeus attempted to arrest the last of the Pharisee leaders. Most escaped. However, those he caught were often executed via crucifixion, which he learned from the Romans. In one incident, he nailed 800 people to crucifixes in one day along the road outside Jerusalem and slew their wives and children in front of them as they slowly died on the crucifix.

Desperate, the Pharisees appealed to Demetrius, leader of the Syrian Greeks, to help them defeat Alexander Jannaeus. He was only too happy to comply.

Demetrius’ army defeated the Jewish army. However, his army had battalions of Jewish soldiers in their ranks and when they began to march toward Jerusalem the Jewish soldiers deserted. They no longer wanted to fight their brethren and be part of sacking of Jerusalem. Demetrius, in turn, decided to withdraw.

The Compromise

Nevertheless, it had a sobering effect on Alexander Jannaeus. After all, he was still a descendant of the great Hasmonean family who had so sacrificed so much for the Jewish people. He saw the debacle he caused and called for a truce with the Pharisees. Through the efforts of his wife, Queen Salome, both sides came to compromise: Alexander Jannaeus would run the government, but the Pharisees would run the people. He would take care of secular matters and they would take care of religious matters.

Rabbi Simon son of Shetah came out of hiding thanks to the urging of his sister, the Queen. He took over the Sanhedrin and promptly kicked out all the Sadducees. He also winnowed them out of the Priesthood. Mostly importantly, the educational system of the country returned to the hands of the Pharisees.

Alexander Jannaeus made peace with all that. In the last 10 years of his life the Jewish kingdom was the largest it had been since the time of Solomon. The economy and the religious life of the people were strong. It was a Golden Age, albeit only for 10 years.

Though they would last for another 200 years, the Sadducees would never again reach the position of influence and power that they enjoyed under the early years of Alexander Jannaeus.

He died in the year 76 BCE. On his death bed, the Talmud (Sotah 22b) quoted him as saying, “Neither Pharisee nor Sadducee fear. Fear only the hypocrites: those who behave like Zimri[2] and yet want to be rewarded like Pinchas.”[3] These were people who had an external piety, but who did not live up to the image they projected outwardly.

The Prospect of Another Civil War

He left two young children as heirs: Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. The Pharisees pressed upon Salome to take charge – which she did.

Aristobulus was more like his father: an aggressive warrior and strong believer in Greek culture. Salome was afraid that if he became King he would lead the Jewish people astray, align himself with the Sadducees and initiate a replay of the whole civil war.

In order to avoid that, at least temporarily, Salome agreed to become Queen. She appointed Hyrcanus the High Priest and gave Aristobulus a few fortified cities. She hoped these would placate both sons.

However, Aristobulus further fortified the cities, trained a militia and waited for his mother to die, which she did in the year 67BCE, after ruling for nine years. She was mourned by the entire populace – not only for her greatness, which was authentic: she was genuinely pious, intelligent and righteous – but because they knew what was coming next: a civil war between the two brothers.

And as bloody as this civil war will be it will include something even worse: the arrival of Rome in Jewish affairs.

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[1] A combination of the name Shalom and Zion, the “Peace of Zion.”

[2] He was the prince of the tribe of Simon who lived with the Midianite princess in full view of Moses and the entire Jewish people (Numbers 25).

[3] “They behave like Zimri, but want to be rewarded like Phineas.” Zimri lived with the Midianite princess in full view of Moses and the entire Jewish people. Phineas, who arose from the camp to vindicate the honor of Israel.

The Hasmoneans

The Hasmonean era is among the most glorious in Jewish history, yet contained seeds of self-destruction that almost destroyed everything.

Many people are under the impression that after the miracle of Chanukah the war with the Greeks was over. Far from it.

The miracle of Chanukah actually occurred only in the third year of the war. After the Jews reconquered Jerusalem, rededicated the Temple and experienced the miracle of the little flask of oil that burned eight days the war dragged out another five to seven years.

At the time of the miracle, according to most historians, Matisyahu (the father of the Hasmoneans/Maccabees) and Johanan (the oldest brother) were dead. The year after the miracle Judah the Maccabee (the third brother) was dead. They were killed in battle. Three years after the miracle of Chanukah there was a major battle where the Greeks tried to reconquer the Land of Israel. At that time, Eleazar was killed when an elephant he attacked and wounded fell and crushed him.

Jonathan Maccabee

Five years after the miracle of Chanukah the only two surviving Maccabees were Jonathan and Simon. Jonathan was appointed High Priest, but he did not assume the mantle of kingship. Even though the Greeks were defeated militarily they now tried to undermine the Jewish government through assassination plots and pitting Jew-vs.-Jew.

Jonathan was invited to a banquet by people he trusted. There he was captured, turned over to the Greeks and held for ransom demanding the Jews to give up certain cities and allow the Greeks to enter Jerusalem to re-establish a foothold there. The Jews refused. Jonathan was publicly executed despite the efforts of his brother Simon to save him.

Simon was now the last survivor of the family. He became the founder of what became known as the Hasmonean Dynasty.

Simon

Simon was a great and righteous person, loved both by the people and the rabbis. He set for himself the task of rebuilding the Jewish State, reinvigorating the Jewish people, throwing the Greeks and Greek ideas out of the country and destroying all of the idols.

The Sanhedrin was led by two people: Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah and Nitai Ha’Arbeli.

As an aside, according to the Talmud, Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah was the teacher of Jesus. That means that he lived more than a century before the Common Era (BCE), i.e. before the time assigned to him by the Christian Gospels. The first Christian testament, Luke, was written about 90 CE. That means when he wrote it there was no one alive who ever saw Jesus. According to the Jewish historical tradition, the founder of Christianity was apparently a compilation of several people. The main persona was dead some 200 years before the first Gospel was written. We will return to this subject when we discuss the rise of Christianity.

In any event, the Sanhedrin and Simon got along famously. They shared an identity of ideas and purpose. Simon bowed to the wishes of the Sanhedrin in all matters of religion. That is why the situation went along well.

A Major Historical Mistake

Simon was not only the king, but, after his brother Jonathan’s death, the High Priest as well. This dual role signified a major historical change, and not a positive one. The leading rabbis told him, in a nice way, that a king of Israel had to come from the tribe of Judah, as the verse says, “The staff shall not depart from Judah…” (Genesis 49:10). Besides the open verse, it was simply not good for a system of checks and balances to have both positions held by one person.

Nevertheless, there was clearly no better man to be king. Jewish law allows for an “Emergency Decree,” which is a temporary suspension of the law under certain limited circumstances. Both king and court felt this was such a circumstance. The threat of the Greeks was still very real. There were all sorts of intrigues and cabals.

Still, it was a mark held against him that he was king.

Simon’s Other Historical Mistakes

He made other mistakes.

His second historical mistake was to make an alliance with Rome, the up-and-coming empire. The Romans wanted a counter-balance against the Greeks to provide them a base for their legions in the Middle East. Indeed, they deployed the Tenth Legion to Israel, which would be infamous for its anti-Semitism and cruelty, and was the primary army the Romans used to destroy the Temple and slaughter the populace.

The third historical mistake — which will not be Simon’s mistake but his son John (Yochanan) Hyrcanus – was to conquer and convert the tribe Idumeans, a tribe in the south of the Land of Israel, by the point of a sword. Jewish law is very opposed to converting people by force. Those are not the type of converts Judaism is looking for. From those Idumeans will come Herod and a host of other troubles.

John Hyrcanus

Simon was assassinated by a son-in-law who was bribed by the Syrian Greek leaders. His oldest son, John Hyrcanus, a fierce warrior, immediately rushed to Jerusalem and installed himself in his father’s place as both the High Priest and King. Then he rallied the Sanhedrin and the people to his side, rescued his mother who had been held for ransom and forced his murderous brother-in-law to flee.

He would reign for a very long time and die in his bed, which was a major accomplishment in those times. He achieved some great things, but left a very mixed legacy.

On the positive side, he helped strengthen the Torah education system in the land, was personally scrupulous in his observance of Jewish law and raised the bar regarding the service in the Temple. He even improved the Temple edifice at great expense.

In addition, he threw out the Greeks and kept the Romans penned in around Caesarea. He took over vast areas of what is today Jordan and repopulated the Golan with Jews. He pushed the border of Israel all the way to the outskirts of Damascus. He also took the seaport of Jaffe and Jews became partners with the Phoenicians in shipping and trade. That is when Jews began to move to North Africa to establish trade routes. Jews also reached Italy and Rome. Under his reign a large immigration of Jews emigrated from Babylon. In short, he brought the country prosperity and greatness.

John Hyrcanus was a worthy successor to his father — until the last few years of his reign. To understand where he went wrong we must recount the emergence of a new group of wayward Jews, the Sadducees.

Origin of the Sadducees

One of the great Torah leaders in the early days of the Second Temple was Antigonus of Sokho. He was wont to say, “Do not be like servants who serve God on the condition of receiving reward. Rather, be like servants who serve God without expecting reward” (Avos 1:3).

Antigonus had two followers named Zadok and Boethus who interpreted his words as meaning that there was no reward or punishment, no World-to-Come (Avos D’Rabbi Nathan 5). If you do God’s will, fine. If you do not, nothing bad will happen to you. God does not reward or punish.

That was also a basic idea of Hellenism. Events happened at random. There was no reward or punishment; what you did made no difference in the long run. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, because what is the difference?

Zadok and Boethus’ interpretation aligned with Hellenistic tendencies, not Judaism. The belief in the Hereafter is central to Judaism, which posits a God who cares and who dispenses ultimate reward and punishment in a World-to-Come. A person’s soul does not just end at bodily death. Zadok and Boethus rejected those basic Jewish ideas.

Their Party Platform

It was one thing to have those ideas, but it was another thing to initiate a whole movement based on those ideas and call it “Judaism.” Their followers became known as the Sadducees (after Zadok) or the Boethusians (after Boethus).

The three planks of their party platform were:

• No life hereafter; no reward and punishment
• There is no such thing as the Oral Tradition
• The priestly class is the ruling class.

The second thing they said was that there was no such thing as the Oral Tradition. It was an invention of the rabbis and every generation had the right to reinterpret it. Of course, it was a catch-22: if they could throw what their predecessors held sacred, then those after them could do the same with their interpretations — which is what will happen. From Christianity onward the Written Torah will become the most re-interpreted, and, at the same time, misinterpreted book in history. Christianity itself would spawn countless factions, each claiming to possess the gospel truth, the divine interpretation. Islam would also come along and claim to have trumped the Christians, possessing the true interpretation.

The Sadducees started a whole domino effect of human interpretations which took the meaning of the text away from its Divine origins. They had an agenda in doing so. Undermining the authority of the Oral Torah undermined the authority of the Torah sages and the Sanhedrin. That fit in with their next ideological plank, which was that the control of the government should lie not in the hands of the Sanhedrin, but in hands of the priestly class.

Basically, the Sanhedrin was democratic, because Torah is democratic. One does not require a pedigree to be a scholar. Respect for Torah is not dependent upon wealth or status. In fact, the Talmud says: “Be careful regarding the poor because from them Torah will emerge.” Torah comes from the humble classes. Torah is egalitarian. It is open for anyone who wants it bad enough. Some of the greatest scholars in Jewish history were converts and people living well below the poverty level. The Sages of Israel were not born with a golden spoon in their mouths.

On the other hand, the Sadducees preached the philosophy of the aristocracy. The upper classes were the only ones that knew enough to run the country. The masses did not know anything. You did not have to ask their opinion. In that regard, they became heirs of the Hellenists, who preached the same ideology.

The Turning of John Hyrcanus

During the reign of John Hyrcanus the Sadducees began to become strong. And he helped strengthen them. He believed that he was so great and his faith so strong that he was above influence.

He was dead wrong.

The Sadducees worked on him for years. They told him that the Torah sages were out to get him; that they did not think he should be king; that they would not let his son reign, and so forth. He listened because he thought it would not affect him, and meanwhile he would use the opportunity to inspire them toward his point of view.

The Talmud (Kiddushin 66a) records the key incident that changed him. He threw a banquet where members of the Sanhedrin were in attendance. One of them accused him of being illegitimate; that his mother had been raped when she was in captivity for a short period of time.

Furious, he demanded an inquiry. The rabbis reviewed the details and cleared his mother; he was legitimate. However, from that point onward John Hyrcanus heard the echo of the poison that the Sadducees had fed him. All the years of good feeling between him and the sages of the Sanhedrin began to wane. Little by little suspicion replaced trust.

The Beginning of a Century of Internal Conflict

This was the beginning of the conflict between the Sadducees and Pharisees. The Pharisees were the Torah sages, the traditional Jews. The Hebrew word for Pharisee,Perushim, means to separate, because they separated themselves from the Hellenists and all outside influences. They attempted to remain in a pristine, unique state of Judaism.

Later, the Christian Gospels would paint some very negative images of the Pharisees, which would become embedded in Western and World culture. However, they were the great leaders of Israel. Hillel, Rabbi Akiva and others that even many in the non-Jewish world recognize as the epitome of benevolent, sagely people were Pharisees through and through.

In addition, Josephus and others point out how the majority of the Jews sided with the Pharisees, about 75-80% of them. However, the Sadducees were a very powerful minority. They were part of the wealthy, aristocratic class and strategically placed in government. They also dominated the Temple and served as its priests. In short, they held a disproportionate amount of power.

The situation would lead to an all-out war between Jewish factions; a very uncivil civil war. It would be a political-religious struggle conflict that would last a hundred years and generate enough enmity to tear apart the Jewish State from the inside in ways outside enemies could not.

It would be so horrific that it can be said if the Jewish people survived that they could survive anything.