Background
Abba Hillel Silver was born on January 28, 1893 in Naumiestis, Lithuania. He was a son of Moses and Diana (Seamon) Silver. Also he was a son and grandson of Orthodox rabbis.
(In early February 1949 American Jewry’s most popular and ...)
In early February 1949 American Jewry’s most popular and powerful leader, Abba Hillel Silver (1893–1963), had summarily resigned from all his official positions within the Zionist movement and had left New York for Cleveland, returning to his post as a Reform rabbi. In the immediate years prior to his resignation, during the second half of the 1940s, Silver was the most outspoken proponent of the founding of a sovereign Jewish state. He was the most instrumental American Jewish leader in the political struggle that led to the foundation of the State of Israel. Paradoxically, this historic victory also heralded Silver’s personal defeat. Soon after Israel’s declaration of independence, he and many of his American Zionist colleagues were relegated to the sidelines of the Zionist movement. Almost overnight the most influential leader―one who was admired and feared by both supporters and opponents―was stripped of his power within both the Zionist and the American Jewish arenas. Shiff’s book discerns the various aspects of the striking turnabout in Silver's political fate, describing both the personal tragic story of a leader who was defeated by his own victory, and the much broader intra-Zionist battle which erupted in full force immediately after the founding of Israel. Drawing extensively on Silver’s personal archival material, Shiff presents an enlightening portrait of a critical episode in Jewish history. This book is most relevant for anyone who attempts to understand the complex homeland- diaspora relations between Israel and American Jewry.
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Abba Hillel Silver was born on January 28, 1893 in Naumiestis, Lithuania. He was a son of Moses and Diana (Seamon) Silver. Also he was a son and grandson of Orthodox rabbis.
Educated in the public schools and after-school Jewish schools of New York City's Lower East Side, he left after high school to attend the Hebrew Union College (HUC) and the University of Cincinnati. After graduation as valedictorian of his HUC class and ordination in 1915—and now known as Abba Hillel Silver—he served as rabbi of a small congregation, Leshem Shomayim, now Temple Shalom (Wheeling, West Virginia). In 1917, at age twenty-four, he became rabbi of The Temple - Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, Ohio, one of the nation's largest and best-known Reform congregations, where he served for forty-six years.
After serving for two years as rabbi in Wheeling, West Virginia, he was appointed rabbi of the influential Congregation Tifereth Israel (the Temple) in Cleveland, where he served from the age of twenty-four until his death. He was a noted orator and a prominent figure in Cleveland, identifying with many liberal and progressive social causes.
In 1920 he attended the London Zionist Conference, where he supported Louis D. Brandeis in his dispute with Chaim Weizmann, but later he transferred his allegiance to Weizmann. However, when the British Peel Commission recommended partition of Palestine in 1937, Silver opposed Weizmann’s willingness to consider the proposal as a realistic possibility. In the U.S. Jewish community, he was one of the organizers of the boycott of goods from Germany during the period of the Nazi regime.
In 1938 Silver was a founder and co-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal and chairman of the Israel Palestine Appeal. During World War II, when the role of U.S. Jewry in world Jewish affairs became enhanced as a result of the destruction of European Jewry, Silver became a key figure in Zionist and world Jewish affairs. After the war had broken out, Silver, along with Stephen S. Wise, headed the American Zionist Emergency Council. In 1941 he spoke out in favor of the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine, ending a fiery speech by quoting the Irish leader Daniel O’Connell’s “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” He advocated a far more activist policy than other American Zionist leaders, calling for the mobilization of public opinion and the application of political pressure to achieve Jewish statehood. He was the first Zionist leader to publicly criticize the position of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the State Department for their views on the future of Palestine. Although other Zionists had .agreed not to press the issue of Jewish statehood but to concentrate on the rescue of European Jewry, Silver spoke out at the foundation conference of the American Jewish Conference in 1943, saying, “We cannot truly rescue the Jews of Europe unless we have free immigration to Palestine and we cannot have free immigration unless our political rights are recognized.”
Silver’s militancy led to friction with other Zionist leaders and in 1944 he had to resign from the Emergency Council after pressing for a pro-Zionist resolution in Congress that was defeated. At the end of the war, the publication of Roosevelt’s anti-Zionist stand in his correspondence with King Ibn-Saud vindicated Silver’s anti-Roosevelt views and he returned to the Zionist leadership in July 1945. A policy of vigorous political activism was now pursued and Silver took a leading role in the struggle for a Jewish state. He was president of the Zionist Organization of America and chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency. In that capacity he was the leading spokesman of the Jewish Agency in the United Nations deliberations and negotiations which culminated in the November 29, 1947, resolution that partitioned Palestine and led to the establishment of a Jewish state. When the declaration of the state was about to be questioned in the Security Council on May 14, 1948, Silver asked the Jewish leaders in Palestine to advance the time of the declaration and when the Security Council assembled he was able to announce that the state was a 'fait accompli'.
Silver’s triumph was not to last long. His dominant role was challenged by David Ben-Gurion, who resented the extent of Diaspora control in Zionist affairs and Silver’s power in the allocation of the financial resources collected in the Uni-ted States, especially in view of Silver’s right-wing associations (as a General Zionist and a Republican). Silver was maneuvered out of his key posts, although he continued to hold a number of lesser Zionist positions. His main activity henceforth was in the American community, in the rabbinate, and in scholarly pursuits.
His writings include A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (1927), and Where Judaism Differed(1956) on the differences between Judaism and Christianity.
(In early February 1949 American Jewry’s most popular and ...)
Abba Hillel Silver was an early champion of rights for labor, for worker's compensation and civil liberties, though his highest priorities were to advance respect for and support of Zionism
He married Virginia and they had 2 children: Daniel, Raphael.