Interpreting Rabbi Astor’s Zionism

*1970 Postcard Rabbi Alexander Astor Portrait by Morris Katz*

Interpreting Rabbi Astor’s Zionism during
the tumultuous years up to 1948

by Sheree Trotter

Zionism in the twenty-first century is a much misunderstood and highly politicised term. A generally accepted definition of Zionism is ‘the nationalist movement calling for the establishment and support of an independent state for the Jewish people in its ancient homeland’.[1] Rabbi Alexander Astor and indeed much of the Auckland Jewish community he led, were known as ardent Zionists, gaining international accolades for their dedication to the cause.[2] But what did Zionism mean for a small Jewish community at the ‘uttermost ends of the earth’, in the early twentieth century?

Rabbi Alexander Astor served the Auckland Hebrew Congregation from 1934 to 1971. He led the community in the crucial years leading up to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. As a passionate Zionist and eloquent spokesman, Astor used his platform to rally the people for the cause he believed in. Newspapers and Jewish publications often published his speeches and messages, which were delivered on Jewish festivals, commemorative events and other special occasions. An examination of these writings gives insight into the way in which he led his congregation during a time of upheaval for the Jewish people globally. It shows how he interpreted Zionism for the local community in the context of the international crises faced by Jews over this period.

Rabbi Astor was called to assist the ageing Rabbi Samuel Goldstein in 1931 and took up the reins of the Auckland Hebrew congregation in the months leading up to Rabbi Samuel Goldstein’s passing in 1935. In his final sermon in 1971, Rabbi Astor attributed his passion for Zionism to his father, Theodore Ostroff, whom he described as ‘a pious and devout scholar and rabbi’ who embraced Zionism at a time when many rabbis opposed the movement because it was seen as a man-made attempt to hasten the coming of Messiah.[3] Astor’s parents hailed from southern Lithuania, then ruled by Russia, but Alexander, one of eight children, was born in Helsinki Finland.[4] The Ostroffs immigrated to London in 1900, and Alexander was registered as a British citizen. Theodore Ostroff was a rabbi and Talmudic scholar, a ‘lifelong Zionist’ and a writer of international reputation within world Jewry.[5] He was a close friend of Rabbi Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine, who is regarded as a significant thinker who bridged the gap between religious Judaism and modern Jewish nationalism.[6] Theodore Ostroff eventually emigrated to Israel, died there and was buried next to his friend, Rabbi Kook. Astor's embrace of both Judaism and Zionism appears to reflect the influence of Theodore Ostroff and his friend Rabbi Kook, as well as the fact that Judaism is infused through and through with Zion, a term that became synonymous with Israel.

Zionism had been an integral part of Astor’s life since childhood. As a young boy, he saw the Jewish National Fund as ‘a living thing’ and had fond memories of dedicating many hours to selling Jewish National Fund stamps and distributing Blue Boxes (collection boxes kept in people’s homes).[7] He heard Arthur Balfour speak in 1917, at a celebration of the Balfour Declaration at Kingsway hall in London.[8] This experience made a deep impression on him. Astor trained for the ministry at the Yeshiva Etz Chaim theological seminary and then Jews’ College, London. In 1925, Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz persuaded Astor to serve in the British Empire. With the encouragement of visiting New Zealanders, the Theomins and Halsteds, Astor made the decision to serve in Dunedin. Theomin, who had anglicised his own name, recommended the change of name from Ostroff to Astor. This reflected their perception that the post-war climate in New Zealand was xenophobic. There was said to be a ‘certain prejudice’ against foreigners.[9] Astor arrived in Dunedin in 1926 with his new bride Rebecca .[10]

The *Judean Bulletin*, formerly the *Auckland Judean Bulletin,* was edited by Rebecca Astor.

Astor was the son of immigrants to Britain, so he represented a particular demographic within British Jewry of those with an East European background. His was not the dominant British establishment perspective which tended to be anti-Zionist out of a sense of British loyalty. Rabbi Astor did maintain a high degree of loyalty to the Crown, but, like his predecessor Rabbi Goldstein, he managed to reconcile his devotion to Empire with his Zionist views. Astor understood the prejudices faced by Jews in Eastern Europe from whence his family originated. Like Goldstein, Astor expressed gratitude for the benefits Jews had received under the British Crown, such as the acquisition of equal rights of citizens. He regarded King George V with particular affection, partly due to his perceived connection to Jewish aspirations in Palestine. Like the ancient Persian King Cyrus, King George was perceived as having ‘delivered them and enabled them to return to their historic home in Palestine’.[11] Astor recounted that in the King’s boyhood days, when the future George V was a young midshipman on the Bacchante, he spent the Passover of the year 1882 in Jerusalem, and participated in the Jewish service and ceremonies. More than forty years later, the Balfour Declaration became, in Astor’s view, the crowning glory of his reign. As a tribute on behalf of British Jewry, the King George Forest was to be planted in Israel.[12] Astor continued to declare Jewish allegiance to the Crown, as a sacred duty, throughout his ministry. During the 1930s he expressed great faith in Britain’s role in overseeing the task of Jewish restoration to Palestine.[13] However, Britain’s conduct in Palestine during the Mandate period would later shake Astor’s confidence in the Empire.

The Auckland Hebrew congregation (then known as the Beth Israel Congregation), was recognised as having led the way in Zionism in New Zealand.[14] Rabbi Astor, along with his wife Rebecca played a significant role. One means by which the Astors influenced the community was through the publication of The Judean Bulletin, which they founded and Rebecca edited. For twelve years the bulletin was sent free of charge to every Jewish home in the Dominion and was considered an important source of local and international Jewish and Zionist news and information.[15] These were crucial years when every family needed to know what was going on in Europe, and Astor and his wife were amongst the few who received air-mailed first-hand news from all over the world.[16] Astor exhorted his people to become actively engaged in meeting the needs of suffering Jews in other places. He also looked to the needs of his own community, diagnosing its problems and pointing to answers. He saw Zionism as one of those answers and one which had a two-fold purpose. Palestine (the name given by Roman conquerors in order to obliterate the names Judea and Israel) or Eretz Israel (the name used by Jews in the diaspora) was seen to be a solution to the growing humanitarian crisis facing European Jews in the 1930s. In addition, Astor believed that Zionism played a vital role in meeting the identity and spiritual needs of the Jewish community in the diaspora.

In Astor’s writings throughout this period, a number of key themes recur. He was very conscious of the isolation of the community from world Jewry, or as he put it, ‘the rest of our brethren of the House of Israel’.[17] This isolation posed difficulties in keeping ‘Judaism a living reality’ in the Dominion. In a Jubilee speech he gave in Dunedin in 1931, Astor posed the question, ‘Is the faith for which our ancestors suffered unparalleled torture and martyrdom still a living force among us, or is it an outworn moribund system failing to satisfy the yearnings of our soul, failing to exercise a blessed and ennobling influence on our lives?’[18] In response, Astor encouraged regular attendance at services in order to cultivate Jewish and social consciousness and to maintain the ‘consecrated traditions’ of their fathers.

On the occasion of the Jubilee of the Auckland Synagogue in 1935, Astor bemoaned the fact that Judaism had seemingly lost its hold on many Jewish people.[19] Indifference, materialism, and a non-Jewish environment militated against strict observance. However, Astor also saw signs of hope. Jewish culture and education had advanced and he believed there were clear signs of a Jewish renaissance. Astor placed high value on education of youth, as a key to keeping Jewish consciousness alive. He rejoiced in the notion that the ‘national idea’ had given an impetus to the study of Hebrew, which had become once more a living language, while the re-establishment of Palestine as a Jewish national home under British protection had helped to arouse historic consciousness in untold numbers of the people.[20] Meanwhile, the humanitarian aspect of Zionism continued to have a strong pull throughout the 1930s, as persecution increased for German Jews under Hitler’s rule. In a 1935 speech, Astor declared, ’Is there a Jew today, who regarding the plight of our brothers and sisters in Germany and Poland, does not raise his hands to Heaven and cry out: “Thank God for Palestine”’?[21] Astor considered Palestine the ‘speedy solution’ to the misery of his people and urged his congregants to put forward their best efforts and continued sacrifice for the ‘upbuilding of Palestine’ as the source of salvation for their people. The action of saving lives through supporting the ‘upbuilding of Palestine’ was considered to have spiritual benefit to the individual’s sense of fulfilment and purpose as Jews. In this way Zionism held a two-fold purpose; meeting the physical needs of persecuted European Jews and the spiritual needs of Diaspora Jews.

At a 1935 memorial service for the “father of Zionism”, Astor lauded Theodore Herzl as a modern ‘prophet’ and ‘seer’ whose work, The Jewish State, was said to ‘infuse new life into the slumbering soul of the Jews’. Astor attributed to him the gathering together of the scattered forms of his people and uniting them into one solid body, awakening ‘dormant national consciousness’ and thus delivering Jews from conditions which were leading to gradual decay. Herzl was said to have made Zion, once more, ‘the central force uniting the scattered and broken elements of Jewry’, so that 'Eretz Israel’ was looked upon as a ‘centre of hope and salvation’. Whereas Herzl was solely concerned with the political goal of establishing a homeland for Jews, recognised by the world, Astor saw the intensification of Jewish religious life and burgeoning national consciousness as closely linked and as key components of restoring and maintaining Jewish identity in the diaspora, Much like the cultural Zionist, Ahad Ha’Am, Astor argued that Palestine stood for more than just an escape from antisemitism. It stood for ‘the saving of the Jewish soul as well as the body’. Astor described Palestine as ‘the centre from which rays of spiritual light radiate and penetrate the soul of world Jewry’.[22] The regeneration of a national entity was seen to be bringing youth back into the Jewish fold. Astor regarded assimilation into non-Jewish society as an ongoing problem, and he hoped the sense of belonging wrought by Zionism would ease the trend.

Following Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938 and the union of the two countries in April (Anschluss), widespread violence against Jews broke out and further anti-Jewish legislation was implemented.[23] Astor responded in a prayer service, ‘The scenes of the Book of Lamentations are again being enacted in Nazi Germany and Austria, where our brothers and sisters are facing untold miseries, indescribable insults and degradation, battling for their very lives against a tidal wave of fanatical hysteria and racial persecution that threatens to destroy them. Never have such vast numbers been subjected to persecution so destructive and deceitful’.[24] Astor attacked the Nazi ideology that branded the Jews as a ‘depraved race, as pariahs whose blood contaminates and whose every thought defiles’. He prayed that the upcoming Evian conference, convened by President Roosevelt in July 1938, would offer new avenues of escape for refugees and that, in view of the urgency of the situation, immigration restrictions might be relaxed for a time by the democratic countries of the world. New Zealand had been invited to the conference along with thirty-two countries, for the purpose of discussing the problem of the Jewish refugees of Germany and Austria.[25]

The plight of refugees would become an issue for the whole world to deal with, and New Zealand’s response, along with other countries, would prove pitiful. Astor advocated passionately on behalf of Jewish refugees and encouraged his congregation to give assistance to their needy brethren. However, government restrictions created difficulties and obstacles and a degree of antisemitism existed. E.D. Good, Comptroller of Customs, commented that ‘Non-Jewish applicants are regarded as a more suitable type of immigrant’.[26] In the period between 1933 and 1939 New Zealand had accepted the modest number of 1,100 Jewish refugees, from Central and Eastern Europe.[27]

In September 1938, Astor’s New Year message reflected his pessimistic appraisal of the situation. He wrote, ‘The world was pervaded with doubts and misgivings, with disquietude and despondency’. He opined, ‘Never since the advent of Nazism in Germany has a year been so darkened by clouds that refuse to be lifted and never has the panorama of the coming year promised less prospect of more favourable conditions’.[28] On 10 November 1938, a further wave of violence broke out against Jews in Germany. Euphemistically named Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, the renewed attacks came in purported reprisal for the actions of a Polish-German Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan, who assassinated German official, Ernst Vom Rath. Astor expressed shock at the violent German reaction, ‘the wholesale slaughter of innocent human beings, the burning of synagogues, the wanton destruction and brutality’.[29]

1941, David Ben Gurion, then chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency in Palestine and future Prime Minister of Israel - en route to Palestine. Evidently, the enthusiastic welcome Ben Gurion received in New Zealand and the unexpected attendance of PM Peter Fraser at his meeting, made a huge impact on him. (AJN, 7 Jan 1994, p.10).

In 1939 war descended upon the country and the Jewish community considered it important to fulfil its patriotic duties. During the war Rabbi and Mrs Astor, amongst their many activities, continued to publish the Judean Bulletin. Even though it was in a reduced format due to wartime restrictions, their Zionist bulletin relayed war news from Europe and Palestine, published letters from Jewish soldiers, as well as keeping readers informed of local events, news items and activities. Zionist visitors continued to arrive, including the future Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, then Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency in Palestine.

Galvanising Support for a Jewish Homeland

In 1943, for the first time, New Zealand Zionists in the various regions united their efforts to work towards the establishment of a Jewish homeland. The ‘first Dominion Zionist Conference in the history of New Zealand Jewry’ was held on 24-26 July in Wellington.[30]

*A Zionist meeting held during the war. Rabbi Astor, as chaplain to the Jewish soliders stationed in NZ, dressed in military attire.*

At this conference, Astor articulated his view on nationalism and Judaism. He argued that those who saw Zionism as only a national movement would be merely creating another small nation and continuing the ‘material selfishness of narrow nationalism’ which had brought the world to its present ‘parlous condition’.[31] He believed that Jewish education that included knowledge of the Bible as well as the land of Palestine was a necessity. Astor continued to emphasise the continuity of the Jewish faith, articulating that New Zealand Judaism did not want to be isolated, but remain part of the Judaism which had come down through the ages. Astor elaborated on the complex challenges in maintaining Judaism. He believed that in Palestine itself, where the Jew was at home spiritually, it would be easier to keep the essence of their religion without adhering strictly to the multitudinous laws of traditional observance. Outside Palestine, once persecution ceased, if there were no religious observances, assimilation would be so rapid that Judaism would inevitably disappear. He believed it was religion that had kept his people intact through the ‘darkest persecutions of two thousand years’, and that gave them the right to their homeland. Astor considered the biggest threat to Jewish existence to be not physical, but spiritual. He believed that physical persecutions strengthened the Jewish people spiritually, whereas cultural degeneration was and still remained the biggest threat.[32]

Rabbi Astor enjoyed a friendly relationship with Auckland Ministers. Indeed he considered Canon Charles Walker Chandler one of his closest friends. Many church leaders spoke out against the Nazi persecution of Jews.

In the local scene, an area of contention arose when the Returned Services Association (RSA) passed an Anti-Alien Resolution at its annual conference in 1945, 'That any person who arrived in NZ from Germany, Australia, Hungary, or Italy, since 1939 must return to their own countries within two years after hostilities with Germany have ceased…’[33] The Jewish community raised its voice in protest and a deputation met with the RSA on 12 July. Astor expressed the shocked reaction of the Jewish community to the resolution. He explained that some ninety families had gained refuge in Auckland, many as a result of the sympathy of church bodies and Christian citizens. Astor knew these refugees intimately, and he felt ‘it would be heaping further injustice to discriminate against those who had been through the sourest persecution in history’. He gave assurances that they would be loyal citizens and a great asset to the country, and furthermore, he argued, there would be no place for them in Germany for the next two or three generations. A deputation also met with the Prime Minister and was given assurances of his disapproval of the resolution.[34] Indeed, Fraser spoke out against racial hatred and animosity on a number of occasions.[35]

In 1946 Astor, attended the meetings of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on his return from a trip to Palestine, an Inquiry set up to find a solution to the Arab–Jewish conflict in Palestine and to the European Jewish refugees who filled the DP camps in Europe. Astor described the military measures taken against the Jews as ‘provocative and unnecessary’ and claimed that Britain was antagonising her only friend in the Middle East. He claimed that, ‘The repressive legislation that had been issued by the British administration (in Palestine) had made us (he and his wife), as British people, feel very uncomfortable’. They believed that the Jews had shown great restraint in the face of great provocation.[36] He considered the arrest of Jewish leaders, alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities, as unwarranted as they were people who had been foremost in recruiting for the British forces during the war. He thought a distinct line should be drawn between the Haganah, the Jewish defence force, which was armed by Britain against the Arabs and which represented the majority of Palestinian Jews, and the terrorists. He argued that the Foreign Office, by its ruthless methods had offered no reward for the loyalty shown by the Jews.

When two British sergeants were murdered by the Irgun in August 1947, Astor expressed in the New Zealand Herald, ‘The horror of New Zealand Jews at a terrible outrage which was altogether contrary to Jewish ethics’.[37] He stated that he was quite certain that everything possible was being done by the Jewish Agency in Palestine to suppress acts of this kind. He made clear that acts of terrorism were criminal and must be condemned without question, and affirmed the statement of the Board of British Jews, of ‘its unqualified abhorrence and condemnation of these acts of terrorism by irresponsible groups whose criminal behaviour was contrary to all the teachings of Judaism’. Astor further added that, ‘He wished Britain would give way, if only a little on the immigration question. There had been no ray of light for the desperately placed Jews of Europe who had suffered so much. Their kinsfolk in Palestine were prepared to go to any lengths to bring in these refugees’.[38] In the addresses Astor delivered after his return to New Zealand, the inner conflict, which he, as a loyal and demonstrably patriotic British subject, was evident, when confronted by the activities of Jewish terrorist organisations struggling to frustrate the designs of the British administration.[39]

New Zealand Jews were placed in the difficult position of defending their fellow Jews in the face of much opposition in the local press. Their indignation was evident. While they deplored the actions of the terrorists, they believed that British failure had created the conditions for these extremists to take action.[40] The editor of Judean Bulletin, December 1947 wrote that as loyal British Jews it was ‘extremely painful’ to see the reaction of a section of the press to the decision of the United Nations on partition. The editor accused the press of producing one-sided and biased reports of the events in Palestine, and complained that they had shown a ‘callous indifference’ to the ‘unparalleled slaughter of six million human beings and the shameful episode of the “Exodus” victims’. The editor asserted that ‘the record of the administration in Palestine since the end of the war could not have produced other than grave damage to the British-Jewish good relationship’.

Conclusion

The declaration of the state of Israel in 1948 brought great rejoicing in New Zealand's Jewish community. Rabbi Astor continued to advocate for a Zionism that combined religious and nationalist ideals and spoke out against a purely secular view of Zionism.[41] As a loyal Briton, Astor expressed deep disappointment at what he considered to be Britain’s failure toward the Jewish people. Upon the news of Britain’s delayed de jure recognition of Israel in 1950, Astor stated that it had been a source of much bewilderment and sorrow that with Britain’s centuries-old tradition of sympathy and understanding of the Jewish position, its parallel obligations to the Arabs and accompanying difficulties had prevented earlier recognition.[42]

Zionism in New Zealand during this period, not only supported the establishment of a Jewish state, but also played a role in meeting the needs of the Jewish community. Rabbi Astor displayed great leadership in guiding and advocating for his people throughout this tumultuous period. For this small, distant, diasporic community, Zionism was seen to galvanise the people and strengthen Jewish consciousness and identity against the threat of assimilation. Beginning in the nineteenth century, humanitarianism was a key driver for supporting the establishment of a homeland for the persecuted Jewish people in Russia, East Europe and Nazi Germany. Zionism also provided a ‘feeling of belonging’, which Astor believed needed to be passed onto the new generation, for to not do so, would deny them ‘that for which our fathers for thousands of years suffered all things to keep intact ‘Achdut Yisrael’ - the unity, oneness of Israel’.[43]

Footnotes

1 Stanislawski, Michael. Zionism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (p. 1). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

2 Lazarus Morris, Goldman, The History of Jews in New Zealand, Wellington, 1958, p.207.

3 ‘Rabbi Astor’s last sermon 17 July 1971’, New Zealand Jewish Chronicle, 27 June,1988.

4 Ann J. Gluckman. 'Astor, Alexander', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2000. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5a23/astor-alexander (accessed 27 July 2019)

5 Bro. A.A. Israel, ‘V.W. Bro. Rabbi Alexander Astor, O.B.E. Past Grand Chaplain: The Minister, The Mason, The Man’, Waikato Lodge of Research, No, 445, 1988.

6 Shlomo Avineri, ‘Rabbi Kook: The Dialectics of Redemption’, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, New York, 2107 Kindle Edition, loc. 3683.

7 ‘Rabbi Astor’s last sermon 17 July 1971’, New Zealand Jewish Chronicle, 27 June,1988. (Original copy, Rabbi Astor collection, p.111).

8 Abba Eban, An Autobiography, 1977, Republished by Plunket Lake Press, 2015, p.7; Dennis Brian, The Seven Lives of Colonel Patterson, New York, 2008, p. 115.

9 Ibid.

10 Ann J. Gluckman. 'Astor, Alexander', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2000. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5a23/astor-alexander (accessed 27 July 2019).

11 ‘Jewish Tribute’, New Zealand Herald, 27 January 1936.

12 ‘Colourful Rites accompany first planting of Jubilee Forest’, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Vol 1, no. 114, 20 December 1935.

13 ‘Broadcast in Church: large Congregation Listens in the Churches’, New Zealand Herald, 13 May 1937.

14 The New Zealand Jewish Review, 1931, p.41.

15 Farewell message at Great Synagogue, Sydney, 1972. (Rabbi Astor Collection, pp.120).

16 Ibid.

17 ‘Jubilee of the Dunedin Synagogue’, Otago Daily Times, 4 September 1931.

18 Ibid.

19 ‘Jewish Jubilee’, Auckland Star, 1 April 1935.

20 ‘Jubilee of the Dunedin Synagogue’, Otago Daily Times, 4 September 1931.

21 Rabbi Astor, ‘Herzl Memorial Service’, The Jewish Review, August, 1935, p.23.

22 Rabbi Astor, ‘Herzl Memorial Service’, The Jewish Review, August, 1935, p.23.

23 Jewish Prayers, New Zealand Herald, 18 July 1938.

24 NZH, 18 July 1938.

25 Britain had admitted 8,000 refugees, Palestine 40,000, United States 50,000, Brazil 8,000, France 15,000, Belgium 14,000, Switzerland 14,000, Sweden 1,000, Denmark 150 and Norway 150. J. Hope Simpson, The Refugee Problem, Report of a Survey, London, 1939, France, p.340, Britain, pp.350-1, Scandinavia, p.397, Switzerland,p. 473, note I, USA, Appendix VI, tables LXV and LXVI.

26 Beaglehole, p.16.

27 Beaglehole, p.1.

28 Jewish Protest, New Zealand Herald, 27 September 1938.

29 Jews in Germany, New Zealand Herald, 21 November 1938.

30 Zionist Movement, Otago Daily Times, 26 July 1943.

31 Editorial, Judean Bulletin, March 1945, p.26.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Judean Bulletin, August 1945

35 Beaglehole, pp.97,98.

36 NZJC, October 1946

37 ‘Jews Horrified, Reaction to Murders in Palestine, Terrorism Opposed’, NZ Herald, 2/8/47.

38 ‘Jews Horrified, Reaction to Murders in Palestine, Terrorism Opposed’, NZ Herald, 2/8/47.

39 A.A. Israel.

40 Judean Bulletin, December 1947

41 Notes from private ‘Rabbi Astor Collection’, p.171.

42 ‘New chapter Opened: Auckland Rabbis Comment’, newspaper clipping in Rabbi Astor’s private collection.

43 Rabbi Astor’s Last Sermon, 17 July 1971.

This article is an excerpt from S Trotter’s PhD thesis, ‘Zionism ‘at the uttermost ends of the earth’: A New Zealand Social History c.1900-1948’

Interpreting Rabbi Astor’s Zionism