Oz Bin Nun: Why Mordecai M. Kaplan Matters After October 7

From 'Young Zionist Voices': The 20th-century American-Jewish prophet has become more relevant than ever.

David H.—October 7 led to a sense of crisis among Diaspora Jews that has triggered a broad rethinking of every aspect of Diaspora life. A key question surrounds the word “Zionism.” A survey last Spring conducted by the Jewish Federations of North America found that while 90 percent of American Jews believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state (the nominal definition of Zionism) only 46 percent identify as Zionist, with another 32 percent saying they “don’t know” whether they are Zionists. Clearly the word has become unclear in its meaning, in part because of the constant distortions of antisemites, but also because Jews themselves have become locked in generations of pro-Israel activity without considering the deeper questions of what Zionism and statehood really mean for global Jewish life.

In the following essay from Young Zionist Voices, Oz Bin Nun revisits the work of the American-Jewish philosopher Mordecai M. Kaplan, whose thought over many decades inspired key institutions such as the Bat Mitzva, Reconstructionism, and the Jewish Community Center. An ardent Zionist, after Israel was founded Kaplan published A New Zionism, which, the author argues, has sudden new relevance in the wake of October 7 and the waves of antisemitism that have followed.

Oz Bin Nun is studying psychology and philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has served as an emissary of the Jewish Agency at the University of Wisconsin, and is a graduate of the Bronfman Fellowships. A writer, content creator, and social activist, he served as commander in the Egoz Commando unit in the 2023-2024 Gaza war.

The following is an exclusive reprint from the anthology Young Zionist Voices: A New Generation Speaks Out, edited by David Hazony. Copyright © 2024 Wicked Son. Reprinted with permission.

Why Mordecai M. Kaplan Matters After October 7

The American-Jewish prophet had much to say about the future of Zionism in the Diaspora—and now is the time to listen.

Oz Bin Nun

The October 7 massacre and the war that followed have made clear just how global an affair “Zionism” has become. Indeed, today the hatred of Zionism extends from Berlin to Brooklyn, from Dagestan to Durban, from Malmö to Morningside Heights. Thousands of miles from the Negev and the Galilee, in innumerable locations around the world, the word “Zionism” is injected with every imaginable evil. Seen up close, this hatred is immediate, palpable, and directed not just at Israel and Israelis, but at the Jewish people as a whole and anyone who identifies with it.

Indeed, it has become clearer than ever that this conflict is not limited to the territory “from the River to the Sea.” Jews have become a frequent target, and the relative calm that once characterized life in the Diaspora, especially in the United States, has been shattered.

An earthquake has shaken the world—especially the Jewish world. This new era demands new forms of coping. It demands that we rethink fundamental assumptions, and that we ask: Who are the Jewish people after October 7?

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The word “Zionism” has had different incarnations. At its core, it refers to a movement of the national return of the Jews to the Land of Israel and the establishment there of a Jewish state. This definition is practical, simple, and specific, but it doesn’t cover the full meaning that this word contains within it, and certainly not the emotions it evokes.

The first step to understanding the current hatred of Zionism is to ignore the specific, pragmatic, Ben-Gurionite definition of Zionism. Not because David Ben-Gurion’s vision failed, but the opposite: because it succeeded beyond all imagination. The hatred of Ben-Gurion’s Zionism is like other hatreds in the Middle East, which refer to long-ago humiliations and defeats, to perceived historical injustice.

Today’s global hatred of Zionism is different. It is a struggle against specific realities today, and it takes place for the most part far away from Israel, and against people who do not necessarily have Israeli citizenship.

In order to understand the place of Zionism today, we should begin with one attempt to redefine Zionism that began after Israel’s founding.

In his 1955 book A New Zionism, Mordecai M. Kaplan, a founder of the Reconstructionist movement, offers a new definition of Zionism. The essence of his approach is that because a Jewish state has already been established, world Jewry must formally redefine itself. The founding of Israel required disconnecting from the supernatural belief in a miraculous messiah and freeing ourselves from the traditional beliefs in heavenly redemption, which included an exilic helplessness. In contrast, Zionists worked for rejection of the condition of exile.

Kaplan’s proposal comes after the establishment of Israel, but embraces Zionism’s intellectual core and applies it to the Diaspora. He points to the moment when Jews decide to disabuse themselves of illusions and to create what in the field of psychology is known as a “locus of control” for the Jewish community.

This “locus of control” is the sense a person may have about how events of his or her life are determined—what causes good or bad things to happen to them. Whether this is internal or external will determine whether people view themselves as sovereign over their lives, or project that control onto others. The importance of the first phase of Zionism, in Kaplan’s approach, was not just in the practical achievement of establishing the state, but in emancipating the Jewish people from the passive belief in an external source of control, and replacing it with an active approach focused on internal control.

The “New Jew” of Zionism, in this view, is not different in posture or musculature, but rather in the ability to take responsibility for the lives of one’s Jewish brothers and sisters. The Jews’ refusal to abandon the blood of their people to the graces of the goyim, of history, or even of God, is the root of this internal locus of control. The biblical declaration hineni (“Here am I”), when other Jews are suffering, is the absolute core of the entire Zionist movement.

Today, the second phase requires that we be no less revolutionary in spirit. Today, Zionism must aim, as Kaplan puts it, “to reconstitute the Jewish people, to reunify it, and to redefine its status vis-à-vis the rest of the world.” Kaplan calls on us to take responsibility over additional spheres of Jewish life beyond the State of Israel. In this sense, anywhere there is an established Jewish community, anywhere that Jews feel that they are responsible for the fate of their community—there is Zionism. This responsibility cannot be atomistic; the entire Jewish community is bound to each other for the same reason and in the same solidarity, and therefore the same decisive act aims at the unity of the community, demands of it its physical and spiritual renewal, and enables active and positive acts towards the world.

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So, who opposes such an idea—and why?

For extreme Islamists, on the one hand, the very idea of Jewish solidarity, and especially the idea of an internal Jewish locus of control, is nothing less than a sin against God. The rise of the Jewish state in the Middle East, together with the prosperity and success of the people who—according to their view—are required to live under Muslim rule, is a finger in the eye of the faithful. This frustration is felt both towards Israel and towards Jews in general, as well as towards the West as a whole, because in all these cases we are talking about an intolerable reality from the Islamist point of view—one that must change immediately.

For extreme Leftists, on the other hand, the focus is on their understanding of Jews as privileged and white. From their perspective, any “oppressor” group that demonstrates internal solidarity is guilty of a cardinal sin. In the theology of the radical Left, the path to redemption for the white man begins with the acceptance of his guilt and subordination to the oppressed. Anything less is heresy—a rejection of the post-modern messianic vision. Zionism is thus a sin, not merely because of the State of Israel, but because of the very existence of the Jew who diverges from his or her sphere of white privilege. Acts of violence against those perceived as oppressed, and the justification of those acts—regardless of whatever complexity and nuance accompany them—are spitting in the face of their god. And any means necessary to resist them is justified.

In Western countries, where these forces command no armies, their main method of resistance is by commandeering the public discourse in an attempt to create a permanent state of confusion in which Jews cannot publicly identify with Israel without being rejected, attacked, and taken out of context. Every aspect of Jewish solidarity, including organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), are demonized. Any statement, no matter how complex or nuanced, is taken out of context and weaponized against the Jews. This leads to what Hannah Arendt called “the disappearance of the public realm”—a public inability to look together at the same reality.

This attack on Zionism, it should be noted, recognizes the enormous potential in Zionism’s central idea: the power implicit in the ability of Jewish communities to support each other and to take mutual responsibility. Zionism in Kaplan’s sense of the word allows that power to be understood at the communal level, and to influence reality at the political level. The internal Jewish locus of control returns to the Jews their ability to be understood, and therefore not to be alone.

To a large degree, Kaplan’s Zionism is the way out of our predicament. Jewish solidarity is the one thing that can guarantee Jewish participation in the public sphere, in the long run, as well as internal Jewish engagement that has been in decline. There can be no hope for the Jewish people unless we learn to stand together against the onslaught—and we cannot do that without Jewish solidarity.

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The central problem in today’s Zionist discourse is its insistence on the Ben-Gurionite approach: focusing exclusively on the Jews’ right to a sovereign state in the Land of Israel. During the current war, and with the best of intentions, with an awareness of the looming dangers and in the effort to steel ourselves against what is to come, the Jewish communities on both sides of the ocean try to revert to the comfortable clarity of early Zionism, and the implicit division of labor between the Israeli protagonist and the faithful supporting role of the American Jew. The shipments of military gear and warm clothes, the massive funds that crossed the Atlantic from West to East in the Fall of 2023 and Spring of 2024 were deeply appreciated and truly important—but not what the Jews as a whole actually needed.

This effort is not merely one-sided and unsustainable. It misses the key to the survival and prosperity of Jewish communities: the internal locus of control and the solidarity it implies. One cannot act as though the only important story is happening in Israel while taking care of one’s local community at the same time. We must understand that there is a joint Jewish story, with significant existential challenges. Unfortunately, the dialogue taking place right now among Jewish communities is about how much aid to give and how, with an almost absolute focus on the Israeli story—leaving the American Jewish community in a passive stance of an external locus of control, leaving out the possibility of auto-emancipation and political self-actualization. In the long run, such a development will be devastating for both the Diaspora and Israel.

This passive inclination rests on another fundamental error. It must be said clearly that criticism of Israel, when it comes from the solidarity of fellow Jews, is both legitimate and welcome. Jewish communities are allowed to criticize Israel—just as Israel is allowed to criticize the Diaspora. Moreover, the emergence of a complex and nuanced discourse, which attempts to improve and remedy the faults of the world and to bring about positive change through mutual understanding—this is exactly what our people needs, now more than ever.

The problems begin when the basic assumption is that Jewish solidarity is inherently racist and therefore illegitimate, or that a Jewish state is an original sin and therefore the world can only be made whole by its disappearance. As soon as these are the assumptions, there can be no community or responsibility, only frightened individuals who are easily controlled by others.

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So what, if we are to accept Kaplan’s approach, is to be done? First, we must rehabilitate the Jewish people. That is to say, we must rebuild our ability to identify as Jews individually, to engage with the Jewish community, and most importantly, to see to it that Jews are physically and spiritually secure wherever they live. This challenge is more difficult than may seem, especially at a time when calls to “globalize the Intifada” are heard increasingly in American streets, and Jews feel afraid and under attack. Every Jew in the world, and every Jewish community, from Tel Aviv to New York City, should be willing to say “Here am I,” and to take responsibility for their brothers and sisters.

Second, we must redefine the status of the Jewish people with respect to the rest of the world. We have to give up on the false binary that holds Tikkun Olam to be at odds with Jewish solidarity, to abandon the illusion that Tikkun Olam means self-cancellation in the face of the noisiest trends claiming the mantle of righteousness while in fact supporting terror and antisemitism. The Jewish community will have to find for itself a new story, one that comes from a perspective of Jewish unity, and through that to repair the world. Perhaps the best place to start is with the figure of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who represented in his moral and courageous acts the political meaning of Jewish faith and commitment.

Finally, to “reunite.” We will have to find the path to profound discourse among the different Jewish communities. We must let go of the illusion that Israel is the main actor, and American Jewry a supporting actor. American Jewry must reconstitute itself as a cultural and political community, to speak its mind, to take responsibility for its brothers and sisters, and to develop a profound and important dialogue with Israeli Jewry. Only in this way can we face the difficult times ahead of us and, to whatever extent possible, repair the world.