Israel: After Zionism, What?

Disappointed that the world's largest and most vigorous Jewish community—the 5,500,000 U.S. Jews—has sent practically no emigrants to help build the new Zion, Israel's Prime Minister Ben-Gurion stirred a storm when he bluntly told the 25th Zionist Congress in Jerusalem that from the time of Israel's establishment in 1948, "every religious Jew has daily violated the precepts of Judaism by remaining in exile."

Ben-Gurion's blast has touched off an embarrassed dispute among U.S. Jewish leaders about their relationship to Israel. First to react was Philadelphia-born Rabbi Israel Goldstein, 64, former president of the American Jewish Congress. Stung by Ben-Gurion's reproaches,...

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