216 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
distinguished a true religious Zionist from “an individual who is committed to
both Ya h a d u t [Judaism] and Zionism.” In a true religious Zionist, Lichtenstein
argued, “the two are thoroughly intertwined.”^17 By that criterion, Buber is more
of a religious Zionist than the founder of the Mizrahi, R. Isaac Jacob Reines. For
Reines, Zionism was primarily a matter of political expediency, separate from Ju-
daism; for this reason he was one of the staunchest allies of Herzl, even support-
ing the plan to settle Jews in Uganda instead of Palestine if necessary.^18 Buber, in
contrast, devoted a sympathetic section of On Zion to Reines’s great rival, Rabbi
A. I. Kook; with Buber the Gush Emunim slogan “There is no Zionism with-
out Judaism and no Judaism without Zionism” is more fully endorsed than with
Reines.^19 After all, it was Buber who said, in his analysis of the Song of Deborah,
“No one can declare himself for Israel without declaring himself for YHVH.”^20
I admit to some intentional provocation here. There is no escaping the stark
differences between Buber and the political movement that goes under the name
of “religious Zionism,” differences that date back to the Mizrahi World Confer-
ence in Krakow in 1933, which anticipated the Biltmore Program by nearly a de-
cade in its proclamation that the final goal of Zionism is the establishment of a
Jewish state.^21 The ultimate symbol of these differences is encapsulated in the
last common term for Buber’s Zionism: “binationalist.” The groups with which
Buber was associated from the 1920s through the 1940s sought to achieve bina-
tional solutions to the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinian Arabs: Brit
Shalom (Covenant of Peace), the League for Jewish-Arab Rapprochement, and
the Ichud (Unity).^22 In the Peel Commission’s partition plan for Palestine in 1937,
“religious-Zionist” leaders already saw a “renunciation” of areas that would be
under Arab control, despite the large Arab majorities then living there. Meir
Bar-Ilan, the head of the Mizrahi at the time, accused Chaim Weizmann, who
supported partition, of endorsing the worldview of Brit Shalom.^23 The fact that
Bar-Ilan assumed that this was an insult, and that Weizmann would see it as one,
testifies to the negative perception of Brit Shalom in Zionist discourse. A further
irony: Brit Shalom sought binationalist solutions partially to prevent partition of
the land. But such ironies and misunderstandings are common in dealing with
this movement.
Susan Lee Hattis has written that the name of Brit Shalom “came to be re-
garded amongst many Zionists as a synonym for ‘traitors.’”^24 The group was
founded in 1925 in Jerusalem as a study circle, focusing on Arab-Jewish relations,
initially intending to place its conclusions at the service of the Zionist Execu-
tive. It published a newspaper, She’ifoteinu (Our Aspirations), and engaged in a
few overt “political” activities, such as binational union organization, as well as
“cultural” ones, such as Arabic classes for Jews.^25 It was notable primarily for
the high-profile figures involved, including Buber, Gershom Scholem, Henrietta
Szold, and Arthur Ruppin. Ruppin was director of the Palestine Land Develop-
ment Company, and his involvement gave Brit Shalom a stamp of authority, al-