The nation which has on November 3rd spoken through the ballot is an America based on economic as well as political democracy and liberty, pauses to hail its major prophet of economic liberty and industrial democracy -- Louis D. Brandeis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who attains today his 80th birthday.
Twenty years have elapsed since his elevation to the bench. Much water has flowed under the bridges over the Potomac. The face of America’s social and economic life has undergone tremendous changes since the “People’s Attorney” has become a member of that group of nine learned jurists whose prerogative is to interpret the fundamental law of the land and to weigh in the scale of their exclusive judgment whether or not any given measure that has been enacted into law is in conformity with the spirit of America as embodied in the Constitution.
What Mr. Justice Brandeis thought about this country’s most acute problems and of its efforts to cope with them by way of legislation, is written largely by himself in what Felix Frankfurter, his closest disciple, is fond of describing as Mr. Brandeis’ “severe autobiography.” This autobiography is a unique and inspiring record. It is a record that occupies, now, more than ever before, the minds not alone of the legal profession. America’s electorate has evidenced its interest in it on November 3rd last. It is contained in those austere volumes containing the cases adjudged with the October term 1916 (242 U.S. –).
And yet a host of newspaper men will gather today at the modest apartment of the “Sage of Washington” in an attempt to obtain an expression of opinion from the “great dissenter” as to how America and the world appear to him on the morning when he enters, according to Biblical view, the “Age of Strength.”
An Unusual Interview
Brandeis has never been the delight of interviewers. Unlike many celebrities of our time, he is not an overly generous friend of the working newspapermen. As the “People’s Attorney,” even before his elevation to the Supreme Court bench, Mr. Brandeis was described by one interviewer as a difficult subject. “It’s hard to interview Brandeis. He wastes your time interviewing you,” the writer reported. So the chances are that very few words, if any, that may have come from the lips of Justice Brandeis will be found between quotation marks in the American press of today or tomorrow.
But there is another phase to the personality of America's great jurist and champion of industrial democracy -- his deep and abiding interest in the problems of his people; his spiritual leadership in the cause of Zionism and Palestine which have become his consuming passion since the autumn of 1914, at the age of 58. To obtain from L.D.B. – as he is not infrequently called in Zionist intimate circles – on the occasion of his 80th birthday, a formulation of his analysis of the Jewish problem and of his approach to Zionism and Palestine, the writer received an assignment from “The New Palestine.” Unlike his unfortunately situated colleagues, who will have to be content with the forbidding silence that surrounds the Supreme Court bench or with the alternative of penetrating the maze of the austere volumes beginning with the October term, 1916, this writer has selected for himself the refreshing privilege of spending a number of hours with Louis D. Brandeis in the library – an interview, as it were, with Brandeis on-record. Brandeis, himself, has consistently given preference to the written over the oral form of presentation and motivation. What he has formulated, expounded or urged in his papers, composed or delivered over a period of twenty-two years, may be taken as describing his view and as stating his approach to the problems of Jewish life and Zionism in which his interest and his leadership is as potent today as it was then. Here the prevailing restrictions of reticence have been lifted. Here the directness and succinctness of expression equal the depth of his analysis and the breadth of his clear vision. Here the realities of Jewish life are weighed, not in the scales of emotion, but measured by the yardstick of life embracing judgment.
But in sifting the views and utterances of a man of the stature of Brandeis, whether by the direct or indirect method of interviewing, a sixth sense of discernment must be in control. As in Jewish law, a line of demarcation must be drawn between the fundamental and the transitory, between the statutory enactment and the provisional ordinance – in this case, a policy, a plan or a method of procedure – which may have been enunciated, as the Talmud puts it, Leshaatah, for the moment, and may have been subject to revision. From this vantage point and with the preference for leaving to the future historian the determination of the question as to what might have happened if this or that controversial point had been approached in a different spirit and determined differently than it had been, our interview with Brandeis on-record proceeded smoothly and dealt with the fundamentals that determined for him and explained to us the outcome of his analysis and the manner of his approach to the problems of Jewish life and Zionism.
Appraisal of Jewish Values
The inherent craving of Jews for education and their readiness to bring all sacrifices in order to attain it, a trait observed by Brandeis among Russian Jewish immigrants, furnished him with the key to the basic character of the Jew. For Brandeis sees that:
“Our intellectual capacity was developed by the almost continuous training of the mind throughout twenty-five centuries. The Torah led the ‘Prophet of the Book’ to intellectual pursuits at times when most of the Aryan peoples were illiterate. Religion imposed the use of the mind upon the Jews, indirectly, as well as directly. It demanded of the Jew not merely the love, but also the understanding of God. This necessarily involved a study of the Law. The conditions under which the Jews were compelled to live during the last two thousand years promoted study in a people among whom there was already considerable intellectual attainment. Throughout the centuries of persecution practically the only life open to the Jew which could give satisfaction was the intellectual pursuits, their mental capacity gradually developed. And as men delight in that which they do well, there was an ever-widening appreciation of things intellectual.”
Noblesse Oblige
In addition to these qualities which Brandeis discovered as being, in combination, characteristic of Jews, he finds three other traits which make the Jewish inheritance a treasure worthy of being transmitted, unimpaired if not augmented, to coming generations. Contrary to the widely spread opinion that the Jew is an individualist (he asserts that such view is a misleading half-truth) he sees among Jews a developed community sense, a longing for truth and a passion for justice. Upon these he places a precious value, a value which is the foundation of twentieth century civilization.
“Is it not a striking fact,” Brandeis asks, “that a people coming from Russia, the most autocratic of countries, to America, the most democratic of countries, comes here, not as to a strange land, but as to a home? The ability of the Russian Jew to adjust himself to America’s essentially democratic conditions is not to be explained by Jewish adaptability. The explanation lies mainly in the fact that the twentieth century ideals of America have been the ideals of the Jew for more than twenty centuries. We have inherited these ideals of democracy and of social justice as we have the qualities of mind, body and character.”
Jewish assimilation is tantamount to death, and death – Brandeis argues – is not a solution to the problem of life. With such an inheritance, with an estate so held by us in trust, it is unthinkable for Jews of self-respect to shirk the responsibility of solving their problem rather than to “end it by ignoble suicide.”
Approach to Zionism
The Jewish problem and Zionism as its solution have been stated and formulated innumerable times. Pinsker viewed it from the inner-Jewish angle as a problem of auto-emancipation; Herzl lifted it on the wings of his inspired vision from the depth of a Judennotto the height of international thought and diplomacy; Achad Ha’am saw it from the sanctum of Jewish culture and from the necessity of salvaging “Judaism” as a valuable pattern in the fabric of the world’s culture. The Kentucky-bred and Boston-raised Louis D. Brandeis, a descendant of the Dembitzes of Poland and the Brandeises of Bohemia, of stock that produced rebellious spirits that took up arms for the liberation of peoples under oppression, formulated Zionism as a cause of liberty, a growth that has its deep roots in the story as well as in the example of American democracy. He approached the problem of Zionism, as he put it, “through Americanism” which, in his interpretation, is equivalent to the very core and the basic foundation of western civilization.
“Our teaching of brotherhood and righteousness,” Brandeis tells us, “has, under the name of democracy and social justice, become the twentieth century striving of America and Western Europe. Our conception of laws is embodied in the American Constitution which proclaims this to be a ‘government of laws and not of men.’
“America’s fundamental law seeks to make real the brotherhood of man. That brotherhood became the Jewish fundamental law more than twenty-five hundred years ago. America’s insistent demand in the twentieth century is for social justice. That also has been the Jews’ striving for ages. Their affliction as well as their religion has prepared the Jews for effective democracy. Persecution broadened their sympathies. It trained them in patient endurance, in self-control, and in sacrifice. It made them think as well as suffer. It deepened the passion for righteousness.”
Problem’s Cause and Extent
Brandeis found that “the whole world longs for the solution of the Jewish problem.” Nearly twenty years before Hitlerism and the now thoroughly apparent bankruptcy of the “emancipation” he diagnosed anti-Semitism as a disease which is “universal and endemic,” its prevalence varying only in degree and not in kind. Even America of the World War period was not altogether immune to it.
The cause of Jewish misery lies in the fact that even under the influence of the liberal movement of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the world has remained half free and half slave. Liberalism had granted individual equality before the law but failed to recognize the equality of whole peoples or nationalities. “Not until these principles of nationalism, like those of democracy, are generally accepted, will liberty be fully attained,” he declares.
An American Approach
Out of the American experience and doctrines which made possible the growth and development of these United States, out of the principles embodied in the American Constitution, Brandeis fashioned an argument which is irresistible because of the strength and inspiration inherent in the vigorous example of American democracy. The Jew as an individual cannot be free as long as his people, his nationality, remains enslaved. A nation is largely the work of man; nationality is a fact of nature. “The false doctrine that nation and nationality must be made co-extensive is the cause of some of our greatest tragedies,” he teaches. In the education of children we recognize that the aim is to develop each child’s own individuality, not to make him an imitator, not assimilate him to others. Shall we fail to recognizer this truth when applied to all peoples and what people in the world has shown greater individuality than the Jews? Has any a nobler past?” he asks.
A Method Most Promising Success
The Jewish nationality, Brandeis continued his argument, has not only a right but the duty to survive and develop. Persuaded that the Jewish people should be preserved, he finds that “it is our duty to pursue that method of saving which most promises success.” And Palestine – as the object of Zionism – promises most success because within a generation the “Jewish pilgrim fathers” – such is his appellation for the BILUs and Chalutzim – have succeeded in establishing two fundamental propositions. First, that Palestine is fit for the modern Jew and, second that the modern Jew is fit for Palestine. Zionism is, in Brandeis’ view, that method of saving which most promises success because “there only (in Palestine) can Jewish life be fully protected from the forces of disintegration; that there alone can the Jewish spirit reach its full and natural development, and that by securing for those Jews who wish to settle in Palestine the opportunity to do so, not only those Jews, but all other Jews will be benefited and that the long perplexing Jewish problem will, at last, find solution.”
That this solution is entirely feasible and can be accomplished within a reasonable time he is persuaded by the lessons of recent world history. “The position of the Jew is not entirely unique. The history of the Bohemians, Poles and several other Slavic races as well as the Armenians provides remarkable parallels.” We have but to lead the way and “we may be sure of ample cooperation from non-Jews.”
The translation of the Zionist ideal into a reality makes necessary, in Brandeis’ view, the accomplishment of two tasks. One is a very definite and material objective: “Our task is to bring into Palestine as rapidly as we can, as many persons as we can. That really comprises the whole work before us,” he says. The other lies in the realm of the spirit and culture – Hebrew culture. This he defines in one comprehensive sentence: “Zionism has given a new significance to the traditional Jewish duties of truth and knowledge as the basis of faith and practice.”
Unity Versus Oneness
Having accepted, interpreted and amplified the doctrine of political Zionism, Brandeis drew the logical consequences from such acceptance. He is fond of referring to Zionism as “the democracy of the Jewish people.” In complete accord with the Herzlian principle that the emancipation of the Jews can come only through themselves, he interprets it as meaning “by democratic means.” The recognition of this principle he extends to the periphery of Jewish life everywhere and draws a marked line of distinction between oneness and unity. “Unity means not oneness in opinion, but oneness in action.” Unity maybe achieved only if it is arrived at on the basis of democracy which allows for full and open discussion and there cannot be unity of action of a free people unless “the decision is the act of that people participating through its properly constituted representatives.” That was Brandeis’ argument that carried the day when the idea of organizing Jewish life in America on a democratic basis was first broached through the launching of the American Jewish Congress Movement.
In the Light of Palestine Realities
The charge has frequently been leveled that in planning the realization of the Zionist ideal, Zionist leaders, in the early stages of Palestine's development, had lost sight of the Arab problem. This does not hold true of Brandeis, for numerous references to the Arabs and to the difficulties that are likely to be encountered in the solution of the problem, are frequently found in Brandeis' utterances.
The 1929 events impelled him to break a silence which he had maintained for a number of years in order to give renewed expression to his faith in the ability of Zionism to smoothen out the sharp edges of this formidable problem. As early as 1918, the "Pittsburgh program," penned by him, was built on a plank of a comprehensive social justice program which, in its broad sweep, included a commitment to discharge obligations with regard to "existing rights."
However, he remained undismayed and undeterred from the Zionist purpose when confronted with [the] Arab outbreaks of 1929. In an address delivered on November 24th, 1929, in Washington, D.C., Brandeis finds that Jews are going to Palestine will "make Palestine perhaps -- all things considered -- the safest place in the world."
(Text taken from decomposing newspaper clipping.)
No comments:
Post a Comment