Ben-Gurion and American Jewish Students at the Cusp of the Sixties: Between Solidarity and Persuasion

Abstract

Abstract:On March 8, 1960, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion landed in Boston to deliver a major address at Brandeis University. Although the focus of the rest of his U.S. trip was diplomatic, he ended his stay with New York appearances on March 16 at the Reform movement's HUC–JIR, the Conservative-associated JTS, and the Orthodox-affiliated YU. At all four campuses, he encouraged American Jewish students to spend a year of study in Israel, a practice that was uncommon at that time but has since become de rigueur. Yet close examination of archived transcripts, taped recordings of the events, and first-hand accounts reveal significant differences in each presentation. Together with contemporaneous descriptions, personal diary accounts, and in concert with fresh academic understandings of Ben-Gurion articulated in recent years, these provide novel insight into Ben-Gurion's relationship with American Jewry and its various components—especially religious denominations—at this relatively advanced stage in his public career.Several scholars have asserted that after the establishment of Israel in 1948, Ben-Gurion's Zionist worldview transformed from one that negated the exile and promoted mass immigration to one that emphasized solidarity between world Jewry and the modern Jewish state. Aspects of the 1960 campus visits support this interpretation. At the same time, based on the evidence presented here, I contend that through his focus on the student population instead of the established American Jewish power bases, Ben-Gurion aimed to cultivate a fresh constituency that could still be motivated toward his original vision.