The Emergence of American Zionism

The Emergence ofAmerican Zionism. By Mark A. Raider. (New York: New York University Press, 1998. xx, 296 pp. Cloth, $60.00, ISBN 0-8147-7498-9. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-8147-- 7499-7.)

The theme of this well-written and strongly argued book, originally the author's doctoral dissertation at Brandeis University, is that Labor Zionism was more important among American Jews and within American Zionism during the first half of the twentieth century than formerly assumed. Previous historians of American Zionism have erred, Mark A. Raider claims, by emphasizing the philanthropic, middle-class Zionism of Louis D. Brandeis and Julian W Mack. Those historians had viewed the Labor Zionists as marginal figures since, as socialists, they dissented from the national faith in capitalism and private property, and, as Zionists committed to encouraging Jewish immigration to Palestine,...